Český Krumlov Day 2, 9/11/10

Day 2 and we were up by 8 am to dig into the complementary hotel breakfast. We checked out by 9:30 am and left our bags at the reception. The NYU group then took a tour of the Eggenberg Beer Factory. We had someone who guided us through the different rooms of vats and machinery. Afterwards, we walked back to the castle and went up the tower. The view was great!

Eggenberg beer factory

The bridge going to the castle is an overpass over a bear den. We managed to catch a glimpse while they dug into their food.

The view of the castle from the tower.

The view of the town from the tower. You can see the church and steeple.

See those blue skies in the pictures? It was a really nice day out, again, so we really lucked out. After the castle tower, we had free time to explore the town. We got lunch at Hotel Zlatý Anděl, which is located right on the town square, and ate at the outdoor seating area (http://www.hotelzlatyandel.cz/)

Bramborove noky: potato gnocchi, funghi, chicken meat and mushrooms

After lunch, we decided to take advantage of the town's many museums. These weren't paid for by NYU (unfortunately...), but we decided to get tickets for the wax museum and the torture museum - for a 2 for 1 student deal of 100 crowns. A lot of the wax figures I didn't recognize, so I won't post too many of those pictures. Or too many of the torture museum pictures. Because some of the things I saw in there were just really freaky. No need to immortalize those images!

Pablo Picaso, Bill Clinton, Matka Tereza, and Papez Jan Pevel II

Charlie Chaplin, Salvadore Dali, and Albert Einstein

Louis Armstrong, Harry Potter, Michael Jackson, and Tina Turner

A torture chair at the torture museum

The town square

Well, that was my weekend in Český Krumlov in a nutshell. 2 days and 1 night were (surprisingly) the perfect amount of time to stay here. The place is tiny and quaint, and you can really walk the entire perimeter in a short enough amount of time to soak in everything. Quite a different from Prague, with its metro, trams, and buses! Český Krumlov was a nice little escape for the weekend from the hectic workload and busy city life. The architecture was similar to Prague's, yet almost more Mediterranean with the predominance of red tile roofs. I can see why this place, along with Prague, are the top 2 tourist destinations of the Czech Republic.

Český Krumlov Day 1, 9/10/10

We met at Namesti Miru (conveniently only 4 blocks away from where I live at Machova) at 8 am on Friday and boarded the bus to head to Český Krumlov for the 3 hour ride. A slight bus mishap later (the bus turned out to be fine, but the 2 RAs detoured us to a rest stop after the driver thought there may be a problem with the tires), we had arrived at the Malphovilka Hotylek. It was a small, homey place, straight from a picture book. We were supposed to arrive at 11:30, explore on our own, and meet the group in front of the hotel at 1:45 for a tour. Because of the unplanned stop, we only reached at 1. Valerie (roommate for the weekend) and I were hungry so we grabbed lunch at Pizzeria Don Pietro right nearby. Our pizza was delicious, but when got to the hotel at 2 and the group was gone.

We ended up exploring the castle and gardens on our own. However, since we weren't with NYU, we didn't have the tickets to actually tour the castle or the baroque theater. After we wandered around for a sufficient amount of time without seeing a glimpse of NYU, we explored the town. Český Krumlov is tiny, and we were able to walk through the majority of the area that afternoon.

Quatro Staggiorni: tomatoes, mozzarella, ham, artichokes, olives, champignons, and tuna

NYU took over the hotel. Every room but 1 was booked!

Our room!

 

 

 

 

A view of the middle part of the castle

The building walls seen from a courtyard

The castle garden!

The water fountains at the garden

A view of the town. That's the castle and tower in the distance.

The town church that was closed.

Yes, that is a turnstile and you have to pay to use the "water closets" here.

We made our way back to the hotel and met everyone at 5:45 for the group dinner at Mastal. NYU was springing the bill and I opted for less traditional Czech food (but my entree more resembled rice with vegetables than a risotto). After dinner, a few of us headed into the town to attend an outdoor jazz concert. We watched two groups play, and they were fantastic!

 

 

 Garlic soup with beef, croutons, and noodles

Vegetable risotto

Pancake with fruit and whipped cream

Outdoor jazz concert

Mexican food and Germany, 9/9/10

Thursdays are the new Friday here. I have long weekends, so when I'm out of class Thursday at 3, I can officially say TGIF... or is that TGIT... or TGIČ? (Čtvrtek is Czech for Thursday). Anyway, what better way to celebrate the weekend than going out to dinner? Brandy, a couple of other Machova-ers and I went around the corner to a Mexican place called Las Adelitas. It's a pretty popular place and we ran into a bunch of other NYU kids there. (http://www.lasadelitas.cz/)

Quesadilla de tinga (minced chicken, tomatoes and onions) with rice, salsa, and black beans with tortilla chips

Afterwards, I met up with Laura where she is staying with her family near Old Town Square. And we unsuccessfully attempted to find transportation and lodging in Munich, Germany for a weekend trip at the end of the month. Right now we're hoping to go the weekend of September 24th, and meet up with Alex (my roommate at Bucknell who is doing NYU in Florence) and her friends in her program. More on the progress of the trip planning, later!

1st day of classes, part 2, 9/7/10

Tuesday was my first day of my other 2 classes. I had History of Nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe at 12:00 to 1:20 and Inequalities: Social Stratification in a Changing World from 1:30 to 2:50.

I've never taken a history class in college, only a political science class (that didn't impress me that much), and I wasn't a huge fan of the read and memorize tactics of high school history. So, I had never given history serious consideration for college classes. I think this particular class just worked well with my schedule, and I figured I'd give it a shot. The topic seems interesting enough, and is after all very appropriate given our physical location. In all honesty however, I'm already a little bored in this class. Hopefully my opinion changes, but as of now, I don't have huge expectations. I'm really just not a 'history' person. But, the professor seems very knowledgeable so that is one good thing.

I already know I'm going to really enjoy my sociology class. I find sociology (and anthropology) in general very interesting. I have previously taken a law related sociology course at Bucknell, which I enjoyed, and this class seemed like a good choice for a different taste of the same sphere.

Pretty much all of my classes (except Czech) are graded mainly on papers and midterms/finals. We'll see how all of that goes. I have a long track record of extreme procrastination so here's to that changing in Prague! On that note... I really need to buy a planner...

One thing I can say about all of my classes is that I didn't have to buy even one single book. All books are "readers" (instead of textbooks) and I rent them for the semester from the library. For free!

1st day of classes, 9/6/10

Monday was the first day of classes and I had Czech at 12 to 1:20 and Literature and the Place of Central Europe from 1:30 to 2:50.

I'm only taking Czech this semester, since I'm in Prague. So I'm not looking to master the language through taking several courses over the next couple of years, but instead to know a good enough amount to get around living day to day here. Our professor informed us that she assumed as much about our motives behind taking the class. Thus, our class would be moving at a faster pace in order for us to know Czech now rather than at the end of the semester. So far, we have only gone over material we learned during our orientation class. And, we have a quiz this coming Monday on numbers 1-99 and the verbs 'to have' and 'to be.' Fun.

I chose my English class because after my freshman foundation seminar, I have never taken an English course in college. I enjoy writing so this seemed like a good fit. The professor seems engaging and interesting. She has already looked into some day trips outside of the classroom for hands on knowledge. So far, we have been assigned a few poems to read. The literature will be from the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovak Republic.

It's hard to tell how a class will be after only a day or 2, but I don't see myself dropping these two in any case.