Agog in Prague

School is keeping me (way too) busy, but I've still managed to squeeze in a bit of fun. Of course.

Thursday, I went out with some people from class for drinks at the Globe, an English language bookstore full of expats. You can check it out here. From there, we meandered our way back to a tram, picking up some Absynthe on the way (in what was a blatant manipulation of my newness to Prague, and is absolutely awful anyway) and headed up to the Jeep Bar, near the TEFL house. There's a definite theme here... can you guess what it is? 

Friday morning was our first Czech lesson. Oh dear. We have a stunningly beautiful teacher named Šárka, and I think we are all doomed. I might be okay if I carry around a cheat sheet for the next few years, but otherwise, it's going to be rough. Peej likes to laugh at my awful pronunciation, and I cannot blame him because I am totally butchering this. But I'll sign up for some more lessons and see what happens. Maybe I'll learn more than Hello, Thank You, One Please, and My Name Is... (maybe). 

After taking an incredibly long nap, we all headed out for a friend's birthday at Nebe, which was a fantastic and much needed night of dancing and cocktails and finished off as any good night out in Prague should... with a smažený sýr. Yum.

Saturday was a lazy day spent eating recovery food (Burger King), watching Big Brother and resting our aching toes. Went with Tara and Andrew to H&M on the hunt for their 70ck sale, only to come home with socks. And groceries. Exciting stuff, eh?

After a nice fry up for breakfast this morning, Peej and I caught the metro to Vyšehrad to do touristy things. Vyšehrad is the birthplace of one of Prague's greatest folk stories - that the princess Libuše, the "Mother of Prague", came to power but needed to marry someone to justify her reign. She had a vision that she would marry a man with one broken sandal, ploughing a field. When she sent her council out to find him, they came home with Přemysl, and they founded the Přemyslid dynasty sometime in the 9th century. 

When you get to Vyšehrad, the first thing you'll see is the Rotunda of St. Martin, which dates from the 10th century and is the oldest Romanesque building in Prague. 

From there we wandered through a little park with some statues and monuments (to what? not sure), and walked into Vyšehrad Cemetery, final resting place of some of the Czech Republic's greatest movers & shakers - Mucha, Dvorak, Smetana. 

From there, it was on to Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul. 

Impressive, isn't it? After seeing that, we strolled around. Vyšehrad has amazing views of Prague and the Vltava River, and it was an absolutely perfect day to be out wandering. 

And one more...

All that walking left us starving, so we headed to Karlovo Namesti and grabbed a late lunch. I had the svickova - beef tenderloin in a cream sauce with dumplings and cranberries, and somewhat inexplicably, whipped cream...

Still, delicious, even with the cranberry/whipped cream/steak combo... 

Peej had the pork knuckle, which is a traditional Czech dish. All I can say is that the two of us need to do something stat to counter all this pork and beef. He basically got a platter with a giant pig leg on it.

Look at the size of that thing! 

Both meals washed down with a nice cold beer, obviously. 

(How are the Czech people so thin? National physique flies right in the face of national dietary traditions. Need to learn this secret, stat.) 

Homework has taken over my life and I need to stop procrastinating and get back to it, so na shledanou everyone!