Sadness...

So i did the math today, and i'm exactly half-way through my traineeship =(

August 3rd, i'm shipping outta here and i'm already sad about it!!

*sigh*

Prague - where beer is cheaper than water!

If i had to sum Prague up in one word, it would have to be... TOURISTS.

i have never seen sooo many tourists clustered in one location before, and i have to say, it really took away from the city. Don't get me wrong, Prague is a beautiful city, but the sense of undiscovered beauty that everyone describes when speaking of Prague, has most definitely been lost.

I've heard Krakow referred to as the "mini prague", but i think krakow is the BEST of prague. It is similar architecturally, but it's much smaller, easier to get around, and it actually IS undiscovered. While i can see and appreciate what most people find so attractive about prague, 2 days in the city was enough for me and i was ready to be back home in Poland :)

So here's a little run-down of my time in prague...

I was traveling with Marie (a czech trainee) and we took the night train on friday from krakow, which takes about 8 hours and deposits you in Prague at around 7am on saturday. We were pretty tired from our long train ride and the MANY times the controller has to check your ticket (ie. wake you up) during the journey.

When we arrived in Prague, we rested for a bit, then had breakfast and set out on a whirlwind tour of the city. We saw all the major sights including the prague castle, charles bridge, the old town square, and charles square. It was pretty tiring but we saw everything and then headed to the flat (we were staying in marie and lubor's flat in prague) for a nap before going out on saturday night.

That night we went to an 80s and 90s party at a club in downtown prague. It was quite an interesting experience, with some truly awful dancing (Kelsey's 'molly ringwald' would've put these women to shame!). I also learned that there's a pretty big difference in 80s music from europe and the 80s music we listen to in the states. Here the dominant music was Aba and some scandinavian rock groups.

We were up early again on sunday to leave the city for a day trip to a castle about 30 minutes away. The castle was really nice and then on our way back we stopped in a town that's a brewery of a major czech beer and had a traditional czech meal of fried cheese (it's delish).

Once we got back to the city i had to rush to meet Jan (a czech exchange student from UNC who was back in prague after studying last semester at chapel hill). We went for a beer and caught up about his big trip to the west coast before he left the states, and after talking for awhile, we realized that he had seen more of my country than i had, and i had seen more of his continent that he had. It's interesting how people take forgranted that they have all the time in the world to see their own country...

After meeting Jan i had dinner with Marie's family and we headed out to catch our train back to Krakow... Special thanks to Marie and Lubor for putting me up and showing me all over the city, you guys are AWESOME!!


oh and sadly, there were no brangelina sightings =(

my life rocks...

so due to a lack of actual work that my company has for me, my hours have been reduced, and yet my pay has not...

new working hours:
10-3 Monday-Thursday

and that's it =)

prague this weekend, i'll let you know if i see brangelina!

ps. check out my article - http://www.charlotte.com/448/story/161813.html

This weekend will be summed up in a few words...

LAKE
CONCERTS
AWARIA - a really fun pub

KRAKOW

Small World...

"don't worry, we can facebook stalk him we when get back to the hostel"...

a facebook reference, in poland, nice. the guy was from california and like every guy that's in poland, he was there for a girl. it's funny because almost every guy i know, now living in krakow, came here originally for a girl and they're usually no longer with that girl... interesting.

so this weekend was great, it started thursday for corpus christi, which is a bank holiday in poland. pretty much everybody had the day off, but the one's who didn't were really pissed about it so they went on strike. but not the usual kind of strike. they all went to work, but they just worked REALLY slowly, so the lines were all backed up and everybody had to suffer with them. it was so passive aggressive, i love polish people =)

anyway there were a bunch of concerts and festivals that were happening for the city's bday and we spent most of our time in Rynek (the market square) and at random clubs and restaurants, and at the lake. it was a pretty typical krakovian weekend...

oh and we made some friends from warsaw so now we've got a place to stay when we visit in a few weeks.

prague in 2 weeks, super excited!

oh and if you're ever in Krakow or maybe London you should check out the Fox Gang, great band and a really fun group of guys!

Polish BBQs are the Best!

So this weekend was pretty uneventful other than the festivals going on and I suggested to my co-worker Aga that we should go over to the university again and hang out with Magda... just for a change of pace.

We decided to try and barbeque some kielbasa and get a big group together at the campus, so naturally by the time we got there it was poring. But we were undeterred and decided to go ahead with our party anyway. We scoped out a location for the bbq that's a walkway under a building and set up the grill there, got some music, people, beer and kielbasa and had an amazing polish-style party.

After much dancing, polish lessons, and being dubbed the honorary "polakian" by Zeus (the dorm they live in is called Olympia) i headed back to my flat and passed out...

i can't wait to try out some of the polish phrases i learned last night, my favorite being, "Boss, how about a raise?"

polish skills: 2

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

It started raining in krakow about a week ago, and it has yet to stop...

They should re-name the city Seattle.

This weekend was the Great Dragon Festival, an annual event that was done even bigger this year because its Krakow's 750th B-day this summer! I've got a ton of videos that i need to edit and post, but so far there's been this crazy lasar show (which reminded me of some kind of brainwashing thing i've seen from a movie, with everyone just staring in awe), a fireworks show with dragon floats, and a parade where all the kids had made dragons, and the boys would dress up as dragon slayers, it was REALLY cute :]



This weekend we're planning a trip somewhere tbd, and later this month is PRAGUE!! can't wait...