Homesick and Tired

Hi all,

It's been kind of a long few days, saying goodbyes and traveling. I've been trying to stay on the Czech schedule of time, but it's hard. It's 5:45 over here, and I am tired, even though I woke up at noon.

Amy and I took an airport taxi to our hotel, Hotel Prokopka around 7:00 last night. It's hard speaking to people in broken English, and I feel really bad that I can't speak any Czech. Our language class starts Monday though, so that will make things easier.

After we got to the hotel, we sort of talked about how weird it was to finally be here, and about what we wanted to do. We were super hungry, because even though British Airways and Czech Airlines fed us yesterday, it was not enough food. We asked the hotel desk lady where a good place to eat was, and the guy that was sitting with her recommended Planeta Zizkov, which is a little bar type place about 2 blocks from the hotel. It was kind of a "rock and roll" type place, as the guy described it, and it was very small and had marker writing all over the walls. The TV was tuned to vh1 classic, and the show was "We Are The 80's" and it was playing Bruce Springsteen and the Bangles and stuff. The waiter was nice and he spoke English, so we got water and I ordered a pasta with cheese sauce, chicken, and mushrooms. It was pretty tasty. It's interesting; here when you order water (voda), they automatically give you a bottle of mineral water that costs 25 kc, which is about $1. Then we stopped at a convenience-type store across the street and Amy got a Snickers bar, even though I tried to convince her to buy some local chocolate. They have the kind of chocolate, I think it's called Kinder, that Sarah brought home from Italy.

A couple other interesting (even if slightly mundane) differences I noticed are these: The toilet has a lower bowl, and the water is really shallow. To flush it, you pull up on this springy plunger on the top, and then a bunch of water rushes into the bowl, and then you push down to make it stop. The sink faucets are also really high above the basin. Interesting, I know.

I am excited for tomorrow. At 10:00, we'll be going to meet a realter, who will show us some apartments so we can move out of the hotel we're at right now. Then we get to meet the program directors and more students, and we will go to Charles University, where we'll be taking classes.

I promise pictures and more interesting stories soon! Thanks for all the emails and good wishes, I miss you all!

Kelly