I'm back!

Okeydokey!  I'm finally back!  16 days without an update...whoops!

I'm trying to remember what I did with the week before I left...lots of German, saw the opera opening projected on the Rathaus screen (awesome!), saw the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Musikverein.  Shosty 5 was pretty epic.  On Thursday afternoon I took my final Aural exam for the intensive.  It was not too bad at all!  And my written exam Friday was pretty easy.

At 1:00PM Friday we all headed to the bus to get ready to leave for the first city of Prague.  Of course, I mainly slept the whole way there.  With a group of about 50 people it is hard to be on time for everything.  We were scheduled to arrive at 5:30, but we must have arrived around 7 or so.  We rushed to check in and go to dinner.  We had a lovely meal I believe that night it was meat with dumplings, and then rushed to catch...a boat cruise!  We made it JUST on time.  We got to see all the sights of Prague from the water and dance the night away.

Saturday was our first day of full sightseeing.  I saw tons of old buildings and the inside of a castle...it's hard to remember what is what!  The afternoon we explored Charles Bridge, which is quite awesome because it's lined up with different statues.  After more epic meals we went to the Astronomic Clock.  It's a pretty awesome clock tower with the time, month, year and every Saturday they project a show onto it.  It was so well done!  We viewed a 5 minute overview of the history of the Czech Republic.  At night we went to a Jazz club (they love their Jazz in Prague!) to experience a Cuban band.  Luckily, my friend from Honduras showed me some moves.  Apparently we were doing well because the band leader complimented us!  And then....we went to a 5 story dance club!  Different themes and music on every floor.  It was crazy.  Crowded in places but a lot of fun.  But I did learn how to protect myself by pushing away any aggressive men.  Yay!

The next day we went over to the Jewish Quarter of Prague.  It was absolutely beautiful.  I enjoyed it so much that my friend and I went back later to explore a well-known Synagogue and cemetery (of course I'm blanking on the name now).  The Synagogue was beautiful.  In order to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust that came from Prague, they painted the names of the people who were killed on the walls.  It was ridiculous to see how much space was covered with names in about 2 rooms. They also had an exhibition displaying children's drawings during the Holocaust.  It was very touching.  We then went to the Spanish Synagogue, which was possibly one of the most ornate places of worship I have ever seen.  It looked like wallpaper on the walls but when you walked up closely it was obvious that everything was hand painted.  In the evening we went to a concert for a memorial of September 11th.  Unfortunately the American ambassador couldn't be there, but two other important politicians got to speak.  Then a hippie rock band played.  It was a bit random but I appreciated their effort to have the memorial concert.  They also had a great display with newspapers from September 11th or 12th from different countries.  The concert was in front of the Prague Castle, which was really beautiful and had a wonderful plushy grassy knoll to nap on.  From there we ate another heavy meaty dinner.  There were so many it is difficult to remember which meat was where!

Well this update was much longer than I thought it would be!  Next post will be about Krakow!