The final ballet

Yes, I have officially gone to 5 ballets. A part of me wishes I'd also seen the Czech philharmonic, a musical, or the black light theater, but I did enjoy all of the ballets, so I don't regret going back so many times.

Saturday, 12/11, I saw Goldilocks. In the Czech version, a cook disobeys the king and eats a piece of the snake he's preparing for him - and is then able to understand animals. The king is furious and orders the cook to find the golden haired princess that they both hear the animals talking of. The ballet then follows the cook's journeys to get to the princess, the trials he must pass in order to take her with him back to the king, and how he and the princess later overcome the king and attain the crown. It was definitely an interesting take on the classic version of a hungry girl who eats porridge from 3 bears that I'd always heard growing up. (If you're interested in reading the Czech story, click away)

The cast of Goldilocks taking a bow

Afterward we went to U Fleku a Czech restaurant and microbrewery that is pretty well known. It was my final meal of Czech food consisting of beef goulash, bread dumplings (I don't recommend these), and speck dumplings. The place itself is very reminiscent for me of the Oktoberfest tents. The long tables make up several rows so that you are seated next to different parties of people, there is live music from the accordion player and the waiters carry large trays of food up and down the place much like the Oktoberfest vendors. All of these factors contribute to a very festive and jovial atmosphere.

U Fleku!

I only have 5 days left here.

Holiday Fair

Today, 12/10, NYU had set up a Holiday Fair for us. It took place in the NYU center from 2-6. There were a bunch of stations set up as workshops for traditional Czech customs (although I don't think all of them are actually). I decorated gingerbread cookies, made candles out of wax sheets and crafted tshirts. One of the staff members even had a puppet show... though most of it was in Czech (for the professor's young kids), and some of the students had prepared some holiday songs to carol.

Puppet show

Later on in the evening, I went to Kavarna Slavia, a cafe right across from Narodni Divadlo (national theater). Daily a musician plays the piano from 5 pm to 11 pm and we had been meaning to soak in this scene. I got the roasted pear in cheese pastry, filled with nuts, served with maple sirup and fresh mint and we listened to him play the grand piano for a while.

Kavarna Slavia

A somewhat relaxing evening - before heading back to Machova to tackle finals studying!

I only have 6 days left here.

People in Need Internship

You may or may not remember that during orientation we had an internship meeting with representatives talking on behalf of several Prague based companies. I applied to a few NGO and journalism companies, and after a couple of interviews I decided to accept an internship with People in Need.

People in Need (PIN) is a Czech organization that provides relief aid and development assistance, while working to defend human rights and democratic freedom. At home, People in Need administers social integration programs in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and provides informative and educational activities. PIN is one of the largest organizations of its kind in post-communist Europe, and has administered projects in thirty-seven countries over the past fourteen years.

PIN is located in Prague 2, just a 5-10 minute walk from my building in Machova. I've only had to go to the building a couple of times for information meetings though. I do all my work on my own time where ever I please. My main responsibilities thus far have mainly revolved around editing. I have edited a few documents and a couple large manuals (they needed a native English speaker). I also did some research on databases and most recently I gave a test run of a capacity development handbook by reading through it and answering the questions.

For the most part, the internship was not too taxing. Since it lacked a precise schedule, however, I would very sporadically get a lot of work accumulated at once. I'm glad I interned here though. If only to find out that employees can bring their dogs to work, it was an experience I wouldn't take back!

Exhibits and the 40s

Thursday, 12/9, I had another early start to my day. I did some errands before class and after class I went to the Galerie Rudolfinum to see the 'Decadence Now! Visions of Excess' exhibit. Curated by Otto Urban, a NYU in Prague professor, I was initially curious about the exhibit because of countless field trips and I'd heard of made over to the gallery. It didn't hurt that I needed to write a short paper for my English class on a Eastern European cultural event that I'd attended. Nothing like the last day of class to tackle that assignment, right?

Decadence Now! is organized into 5 categories: Pain, Pop, Sex, Madness and Death. Some parts were definitely graphic and gory. Others were slight more light-hearted, but in general the exhibit was definitely different than any I'd ever seen before.

Gallery director Petr Nedoma says, “It’s the other way around: it is what they reveal – not the works themselves – that are shocking. You can accuse some artists of intentionally setting out to shock. But in this exhibition we deliberately avoided such work. If you look at what’s on view, compared to the portion of violence, blood, and helplessness which we see every day on the TV news, this show is a walk in the park. These works reflect what already exists, rather than deliberately setting out to shock.”

Galerie Rudolfinum

With a bit of downtime in Machova I later headed out again, this time back to the NYU center. The photo class was having an exhibition of their final projects, and a few of my friends were in that class. After checking out the exhibit, we went to Jam Cafe, where there was another RA event. The theme was 40's Retro Night.  We saw a jazz pop band called Chamber Worcester and Megaphone. I bowed out before getting a chance to see the performance of swing and step dancing, but it was still nice to experience a local Czech hang out place.

 Listening to music at Jam Cafe

I only have 7 days left here.

Libraries, the ballet, and tea

On Wednesday, 12/8, I had another busy day. I met a friend at Old Town before class to grab a quick Indian meal at Beas - a self serve vegetarian place. We wandered through the Christmas market and looked at the marionette dolls (Prague is famous for puppet shows) and then I had class from 12 to 3. After class, I went to the Klementinum, the national library of the Czech Republic. I had been meaning to for awhile, and I'm glad I did even if it was just to see the interesting sculpture in the front lobby. The upright hollow tunnel like figure was made entirely out of books stuck together. The most interesting part was that when you looked inside of it, it looked like it was never ending... because there were mirrors placed at the top and bottom!

 A tunnel of books

After about an hour to regroup back in Machova, I headed back out to Cafe Louvre, a Parisian style café and billiard hall, dating from 1902. I got the large pea cream soup with mint, potato with cream and bacon and the ricotta cake with lemon and whipped cream. Then it was time for the ballet! NYU in Prague was subsidizing tickets to the Nutcracker, which I'd never seen. It was great, but I'll have to see it again in the US someday... the Prague version combined the Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol.

Nutcracker cast taking a bow

My night wasn't yet over. Another RA, had organized another RA event at Siva, an Arabian style tea and coffee room. I'm not too big into tea or coffee, but it was a nice atmosphere and something I hadn't yet done in Prague! As you can see, I'm trying to cross a lot of things off my bucket list while I still have the chance... I only have 8 days left here.