when asked in czech class for an important date in american history I said 1969...

and then it was the class's job to guess which significant event I was thinking of. I guess not everyone's dad was at Woodstock because no one knew.

The mystery pyramid is a theatre! That did turn out to be quite the adventure. We fueled up at McDonald's on the way and then walked there in the rain. Well it wasn't THAT adventurous.

Has anyone written a book about homeless culture all over the world? I'm intrigued by how begging techniques differ throughout. In prague you will only see people down on their knees with their heads bowed to the ground, maybe a sign, and a hat/receptacle of some sort. We had our own little anthropological discussion on our way to dinner about this behavior compared to some of the people of the streets of New York. Stories were shared about this regular here and that there who all shout at you, some more comprehensible than others. Of course they are only the ones who stand out. I'll have to look into homeless and jobless statistics here compared to New York because I've seen a total of 3 guys begging on the street here, I think. Maybe that's deceptive? Vamos a ver.

my friend's bank considers the czech republic a third world country

Yesterday a few of us went on an adventure to the bus station in Prague to buy tickets to go to Bratislava today. One company told us they had a bus at 6:30 in the morning and we stood at the counter for 10 minutes debating whether we would be willing to get up for that, or could we just stay up all night, etc. Then we hopped on over to the Eurolines counter, at which we found an 8 AM bus and we were shoving our money over the counter when the woman helping us said "Sorry, there is a system failure. Please go out to the platform where there is a window also selling tickets." So we walk around the station aimlessly for 5 minutes, finally spot the window and wait on line. Same thing happened there. This time with no explanation and no possible solution. The man shook his head and sighed angrily, Matt said, "It's not working?" and he replied, "No. Sorry." We took this to be a sign advising us not to go to Slovakia this weekend... We didn't stick around to see if the system failure only applied to us or whether he whole line of ten people behind us would be turned away as well. We're still not sure what happened...

In other news, I spotted a pyramid on the horizon last night while we disembarked from the night tram. Apparently, after finding it with Google's satelite map, it's not very far away and I guess that means it isn't as huge as I'd imagined it to be. But anyway, there's a pyramid shaped building in Prague's Holesevice district (where we live) and today's adventure will be to find out what it is.

feels just like home...

Well here I am in Prague!
It's snowing and snowing and it won't stop, and somehow I feel like I'm caught in a Nor-Easter. Being from Boston, naturally I didn't really notice on my way to school whether the city looks much more beautiful with a white cover because I was too busy cursing the brown slush with which cars were spattering me and trying to keep my balance on the slippery cobble stones knowing all too well the feeling of embarrassment after the inevitable first fall of winter. On a similar note, I believe that this was Prague's first snow fall. I think that contributed to the disarray of the city--I'd normally expect the streets to be well plowed or for my teacher who is used to these conditions not to be half an hour late to class this morning. I hope the Czechs will remember that it's winter today and begin to show me some efficiency, but we'll just have to see about that.
We've been in Prague now for a week and a half and after the first few days of endless beer drinking here... well I wanted to have something redeeming to say but I don't. It's an awful mess of fun! Anyhow, endless isn't an appropriate adjective; so far I've gotten to bed rather early during the week in order to do class at 10:30 every day. Those of you who lived with me in Madrid: please pray for me and my attendance grades!
Now, the most important order of business. Starbucks. and the lack here of it.
Only kidding!!! Coffee here is great, and what Prague lacks in Starbucks it more than makes up for in its wealth of great bagels, hot dogs, and FRIED CHEEESE! There's something about the Czech's obsession with fried cheese that I find very endearing. I'm most excited about the bagels, which we American kids find at a cafe called Bohemia Bagel that offers everything American from Philly Cheese Steaks to Pancakes.

Ahoj! (pronounced "Ahoy")