Vltava, zoo and grunge

Vltava, zoo and grunge, can you fit them all to the same weekend? Yes you can. Last weekend I initially had few plans, but it turned out to be a weekend full of action and fun stuff!

Friday my flatmate's university had a party for the end of the semester. He asked me and a couple of other people if we wanted to come along. I don't know how private the party was supposed to be and if we were really allowed to go there, so at the entrance we cheersed our welcoming Becherovka "to the end of the semester!" ;)

The cool thing about the party was that it was on a river boat. *I have now spent quite a few minutes thinking how to describe this.* It was just cool :) to see the view from the middle of the river, especially to Vysehrad. It was cool to see the sun setting and lights reflecting from the water, and it was cool to be in a disco boat in this setting. We were dancing.

The boat ride took 2 hours, but when we came back to the dock, no one seemed to leave the boat. So we thought that we were just gonna stay there dancing and having a good time until they tell us to leave. They didn't. Instead, the boat started its engines, and left for another 2-hour round on the river. We didn't mind! :D

With Jalal.

Vyšehradský železniční most.

Vyšehrad.

Vltava in the evening.

Vltava in the night.

On Saturday I went to the ZOO. We had a great day. It turned out to be really sunny and warm. We had lots of fun together, joking about everything. The word of the day was 'opice', monkey in Czech. :)

Our fantastic zoo crew.

An elephant which should have been in the wild.

What I liked about the zoo was the natural setting. Look, this could be a back yard. With a wild animal with horns relaxing in it.

A pelican.

A field where they let wild animals such as giraffes run free. There's a house right behind the back fence. Wouldn't it be sooo awesome to live there!

One of the most fun things at the zoo was this chairlift from the communist days. It was just so random. :) Like a ski lift. And the view was great.

Wuihii!

Wuhuu...

After leaving the zoo we went to this garden across the road, and took loads of funny pictures! Here's couple.

Opice!

Romeo and Juliet.

Saturday evening I went to my friend's place to a grunge party. It was fun :) Everyone was wearing clothes from the 90's and we were listening to grunge and other stuff from the 90's. I was hoping that those clothes would be 'in' again, because big flannel shirts are just damn comfortable! But then again, who cares what's in, you can wear whatever you want and what makes you feel good.

House party.

Hanging.

Girls.

I got a kiss!

Blondes.

Lipstick.

Courtney Love. :)

English tea

Nina and Ross, two people from England threw an English tea party. They served English foods and wine. However, the foods were kind of international (e.g. couscous). When the guests were wondering if they can really be called 'English', the host just went: "Well, we owned every single country at some point, so we can perfectly legitimately call these foods English!" continuing: "The only country we didn't own was the Czech Republic and that was only because we didn't want it.". :)

I just wanted to post some pictures, so here we go!

'English' food: sandwiches, samosas, couscous...

A copy-paste mistake that turned out quite cool :)

The hostess.

Scones!

The host with the trifle he had made.

It was good!

A little entertainment...

The end.

Spring time, feeling good!

Hey y'all! It is spring! It's lovely. The city is getting more beautiful all the time. The flowers, the trees, the sun, the scents of different flowers, the warm breeze... A couple of weeks ago it was like summer, but now it's raining. But hey, there's lots of good weather to come, just be patient.

It's not only spring outside though. There's a spring in me! :D Really.

When I came here, I felt a bit lost, and a bit lonely from time to time. I didn't really know where to put myself and where to grab on.

Getting used to your new environment as an exchange student was utterly easy. You were put to live in the same house, study on the same courses and party together with the same awesome people, and of course you immediately made a lot of friends with whom you spent a lot of time with, and who were in the exact same position as you were. So, with these incredible memories in mind I came here. And of course it's different when you go to another country alone. Thoughts like "am I ever going to have as much fun as I did before" were going through my head although I tried to be positive.

But my feelings started to change pretty much immediately after I started to get more friends. I can probably point out on a calender that "after this and this party and these get-togethers and this weekend trip I started to feel pretty damn happy!" :D

Dear everyone, if you are in this situation, trying to work your way in a new environment, new country, new culture, trying cope with the everyday life and enjoy it at the same time, I have an answer to you. And this is not just based on my own experience, but also on what I have heard from so many other people living in a foreign country.

Things get better, easier and more fun, when you meet new people and get friends. You start to enjoy your life in the new place, and the problems you have been experiencing, they don't feel that heavy anymore. Some people make good friends instantly, for some people it might take 3 weeks, and for some people it might take 6 months. But the thing that connects these people, is that their lives changed from the shades of gray into bright colors after they started getting friends and booking their evenings with dinner parties, karaoke nights, and random get-togethers...

Smile, and let the spring come into you! :)

Here are some pics from what it is like at the moment in Prague.

A preview of the summer a couple of weeks ago.

The same park (which is on may way to work) last week.

Rain and rain... but it'll get better, I'm sure about that! :)

Random news

I was going to write about spring and how lovely it is, but since it's been raining the whole week, I'm gonna entertain you with just some random news.

I'm tireeeed!!! You know how they say that if you don't sleep enough, it equals to being drunk? Well in that case I am wasted! And stoned! I'm a dead woman walking... Seriously, I had no idea you could feel this way. I have like these out-of-body experiences when I'm walking down the street, like suddenly I have no idea where I am and I'm like "where am I?" and then I'm like "I'm on my way home!" and then I'm like "what is going on?"... (whatta hell am I talking about I don't know...) And like yesterday, I was listening to my mp3 player (which is not an iPod, but the cheapest one I could find), I was changing the song holding it in my hand, and I suddenly felt a connection between myself and my mp3 player. Yes, you heard me. And you should have seen me just coming home from work, as I was jiggling my keys in my hands and searching for the lock with my eyes open only half-way. I'm glad my neighbors didn't see me. They would have been like: "Girl, 12 hours from now I would understand that, but at 5 PM? Get a hold of yourself!"

It all started some time ago with weekends that went on, for example till Monday mornings, and of course on Monday mornings there is work... And some other late nights that were again followed by work the next morning. But now, I'm just trying to get by normal days! I'm really busy all the time. I go to work, I go to yoga or choir, and I meet friends. And I get home at 10 the earliest, so I don't have time to get a good night sleep...

I feel like I have to do something all the time. I'm in Prague! Only for a little while, I can't waste any time! Like just a moment ago when I came home, obviously exhausted, immediately I was thinking about what I should do and where I should go. But nah-ah-ah, girrrl, the only place you're going is bed. (where I am already hahhahhaa...)

Do you think that extreme tiredness lowers your IQ? I hope it's that...

This week at work has been interesting! Really! I have had to call to companies around the world and besides English I've spoken Japanese, Korean and French! (I don't speak Japanese or French.)

When I was calling to Hiroshima, at first I was trying to speak English, but of course the conversation didn't take off. But then I asked my little brother, who speaks some Japanese, to translate me some phrases, like "hello" and "can I speak with someone who speaks English". So I read my speech in Japanese and the person on the other side started talking something. He probably realized that I couldn't understand anything, so, Mr. No English started to speak English himself! Hehehe...He was nice. But it's often like that with people from East-Asia. At first they don't dare to speak English, but if you get closer to them, they'll warm up.

I was excited when calling to another place in Japan I understood one word the girl said. :) That was "matte", which means "wait". I had learned it from anime! :D I was also very excited when I spoke Korean, even though I hardly speak it at all.

A random picture from our office kitchen last week. I work with Americans. Maybe they're homesick.

Oh yeah, last weekend was the 1st of May. As could be anticipated, Czechs had their own, odd traditions. They celebrate mayday by burning witches. They build witches out of hey and paper and set them on fire.

It was a very warm evening, so we just took it easy and weren't stressing to hurry to the witch burning. When we arrived to Kampa park, the witch had already burned and there was only a bonfire left. But we saw some fire artists so it was still cool.

You know, in Finland maydays are usually accompanied by cold rain, but this mayday here was just lovely. T-shirts. This picture is dedicated to everyone in Finland! :)

Okay honeys, I wish you all a great weekend! I'm gonna spend it sleeping.

P.S. this was my 99th blog post. Ain't that just random!