litoměřice!

our trip to litoměřice was arguably the best cerge trip i've taken all semester, for several reasons.

1) it was the warmest - seriously, spring in prague ROCKS. i'll probably reiterate this in every blog post.
2) it was the shortest - we were back in prague by 9pm.
3) it had the fewest people. 

... among many other reasons, as you'll see.

we left school around 10am on friday morning and drove about an hour away from prague to a small town called litoměřice (pronounced something like lit-to-mye-zritz-se). per usual, i remember shockingly little from the tour so almost all of the following information is from wikipedia. litoměřice was established in the 10th century and remained fairly intact throughout history. the symbol of city is a chalice (see photo below) and one of the coolest parts is that a bunch of cellars are connected underground via tunnels, which we got to see firsthand at the restaurant we went to for lunch. 

also, just for pavel: the original town wall was built in the gothic style.

after our tour, we went to go eat lunch and then headed to ploskovice castle, where anna, one of the study abroad directors, LIVED. yes, she lived in a castle (because her mom was one of the caretakers) so she grew up alongside crystal chandeliers and ridiculous ceiling paintings. anna gave us the castle tour and she had her own KEY which was awesome. plus we got to sit on the castle furniture! epic. there was also a cave-esque cellar downstairs that was built to keep people cool during the summers. seriously, great stuff. i also got to see some more peacocks (i think i'm up to peacock sighting #4).

then we went wine tasting at velké zernoseky. yes, we went wine tasting on a school trip = another reason why i love europe. we first got a tour of the wine cellar which was really cool - we saw bottles that were fermenting (or whatever the proper term is) and then sat down to sample seven types of wine (five white wines, two red wines). they didn't really tell us how to properly taste the wine (nothing about whether we should swirl it, whether we should smell it, etc) but that's alright. it was a great time. we made some neat art with toothpicks, ate a lot of bread and cheese, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. once we returned to prague, karin, kyra and i went to get thai food at lemon leaf before calling it a night.

on thursday night, i went to an international club-organized party in mala strana with kyra, jeannie, karin, and pranadhi. we got english flags painted on our faces, went to mcdonald's at 3am, and took some quality pictures. a good night, i'd say.

as the weather gets warmer, i've noticed two things happening:
1) there is an inverse relationship between the temperature and my level of productivity.
i'm not sure how i'm going to manage getting work done in the next three weeks. i have four final papers, and three of them are 10+ pages, which is pretty legit. and requires research. however, i spent sunday "working" outside, going to see the lennon wall, then sitting in the park. uh-oh. i feel sort of torn because on one hand i am not a good student in prague and feel like i should try more.. but on the other hand i KNOW next semester is going to compensate several times over for what i'm not doing this semester (i think rubenstein's three hour class is going to be more work than this entire semester) so i might as well enjoy my semester abroad. i can already tell you the latter is going to win.  

2) there is a direct relationship between the temperature and the number of tourists in prague.
nicki (the program director) told me that during the peak of tourist season, there are so many tourists on charles bridge that you can't even cross it. now that we're reaching may, i can totally believe it. i'm glad i decided to come abroad in the spring to see prague transition from winter to spring, but i'm also glad i won't be here for the height of tourist season. 

speaking of tourists. my mom is coming to prague on wednesday night and we are definitely going to hit all the tourist places. not only am i excited to show my mom around prague, we are going back to cesky krumlov, which is going to be INCREDIBLE :))))))

one last note: why the hell is MGMT playing at yale's spring fling? i can't believe we don't get to reap the benefits of MGMT being wes alums. LAME.