Finally I have arrived in Prague! I got here yesterday morning around 8:30. I was so exhausted from traveling, even though I slept almost the entire time, on all three planes. Standard. I was the first girl to arrive so I got to pick my room, which ended up being a huge bonus. Our apartment is about 3 times bigger than the other 2. My roommates started arriving at about 11. 2 girls from Rhode Island and then my roommate who is from Washington. We went and met the other boys and they took us grocery shopping. Talk about confusing. Thank the Lord for fruits and vegetables being universal because besides that we didn't know what anything was. Things are much cheaper here which is nice. We came home and attempted to unpack which led to me napping while my roommate was being productive...then the others students arrived. There are 12 of us, 8 girls and 4 boys. Everyone is super nice and really just looking forward to seeing and doing as much as we can while we're here.
We went out to a little pizzeria that one of my friends suggested. 3 other girls and I were going to split a pizza that we kept asking the waiter for "just cheese, just cheese" I then pointed to the word cheese on the menu and he seemed relieved "ahh, yes yes". So far English has been very hard to come by and we've struggled to communicate. Well needless to say, he didn't understand us correctly and as the other half of the group was given their giant Hawaiian pizza we were given a very small plate with a circle of bri cheese with some orange sauce overtop served with bread. We already felt bad about not knowing any Czech when ordering drinks we just decided to try it. It was good, but no cheese pizza.
Today we woke up and decided to head into the city to go to the big grocery store and to figure out where our school was. Our apartment decided to split off from the group and go just the 4 of us. We had no clue how to get anywhere and it was interesting trying to figure it out. We headed to the tram station and got tickets, hopped on the 17 and headed out. We made it to the St.Charles bridge and decided to get off. I cannot begin to explain how beautiful this city is. I was completely blown away. The architecture is so old that every single building is picture worthy. We walked around a bit and then finally found the Tesco, the 5 story Target-ish store with groceries. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out where things were but we were able to find it all! We headed home on the tram. Once again our communicaition failed us. Apparently when you get on the tram you are supposed to stamp your ticket in the machine and it is then valid for 90 minutes. Well, we didn't. So when the tram-ticket man came around to check our tickets and they weren't stamped we all had to pay a $40 fine! Our lack of Czech was no excuse for this guy. We certainly learned our lesson.
Let's hope we get a little better at communicating within the next few weeks!
Molly Jayne
