reflections: month one.

per usual, i have approximately 17000 things i want to blog about, but i have some reading to do. i also had some freakish 24-hour cold/flu/virus last night because after i got home from my first full day at TOL, i made soup, did some czech homework, and literally crashed at 6pm until this morning. actually, that's not completely true because i woke up at 9pm with serious body chills and then again at 10:30pm because i was hungry.. and then at 4am because i was thirsty. but you get the point. thankfully i'm feeling a lot better but i'm going to try to take it easy since i'm going to amsterdam (!!!) on thursday.

today marks the one-month point of my study abroad experience in prague. to celebrate, i bought a TON of bread, including baguettes that had just come out of the trusty albert oven. the last month has been really interesting in many, many ways. my life in prague is so different from life at home or at wesleyan in almost every way. for example,
-i cook all the time here instead of depending on a meal plan.
-i have a roommate, which can be a good and a bad thing.
-i am not stressed out 99% of the time from school. 
-i have trouble with simple tasks (such as doing the laundry or buying cheese) because of the language barrier.
-i have to speak czech, not english, to get around.
-i take the metro to school.
-sometimes, i have no idea what's going on. ok, this was also the case at wesleyan, but moreso here. i can't read billboards, buy thai food, or go somewhere without having specific plans.
-i get lost. a lot. but that's not exactly new.

i'm learning a lot from the experience already - in fact, i'm starting to realize that i am capable of doing more than i thought i could, and being able to navigate my way around a foreign country with limited language abilities and terrible map-reading skills gives me a bit of hope for the future. but let's not get too ahead of ourselves here. i still have a long way to go before i can be a functioning adult in the "real world."

anyhow.
on friday and saturday, we went to cesky krumlov, a beautiful, picturesque small town about three hours away from prague. it was hard to wake up at 8am on a friday (for several reasons) but it was an incredible trip. we saw a labor camp before we arrived in cesky krumlov, which was quite an eye-opening experience for me. sometimes i have trouble believing how human beings can inflict such pain and torture on other humans. we're going to krakow in a few weeks, and seeing/hearing about the labor camps was hard so i can't imagine what it's going to be like to visit auschwitz. 

we got to cesky krumlov around 1ish (i think) and ate a DELISH LUNCH at a medieval restaurant. it was probably the best meal i've had since i've been abroad and i got some onion soup in a bread bowl, chicken steak with potato pancakes, and apple pie with vanilla ice cream. WIN. after that, we checked into our hostel and went for a tour of the city, hearing a bunch of ghost stories. we napped in the hostel afterwards, and that night, i got to use my czech and ordered ice cream (zmrzlina), then headed to a pub to listen to some live gypsy/roma music. it was awesome!

 

trust me, it looks even better in person!

one more thing: yesterday was my first day at TOL and it was awesome! i got to read and edit an interim report, in addition to a grant proposal. both of the things i read were related to free press and new media workshops in azerbaijan, and it helped me figure out what types of projects TOL organizes and why they need/apply for funding. in some regions of azerbaijan, the concept of free press doesn't exist. the government monitors and controls all of the media sources so it's impossible to get information out to the public. TOL, in conjunction with trainers, helps put together different workshops for journalists, students, and NGO reps that address this issue, along with "new media" - how to use blogs, internet security, etc. it was nice to do something substantial instead of copying and pasting biographies of state reps all day like i did this summer... i did have to do some office work (scanning documents) but i didn't really mind. plus the TOL office is only 10 minutes away so i came home on my lunch break and had some tea before going back.

well if you made it to the end of this blog post, CONGRATS! sorry this was a little text-heavy (normally i like to add more pictures but today i don't have the patience for it)... i already have the title of my next blog post ready so stay tuned!

p.s. i changed the pictures on the sidebar with pictures that i've actually taken (as opposed to stealing them from google images). my photos may not be as great, but i've been to all those places on the right. the pictures are: inside st. vitus cathedral, the view from prague castle, and at cesky krumlov :)