Czech out my blog...it's about Prague!

 I'm actually laughing out loud at my blog title hahaha I crack myself up....

This past weekend (September 13-16) Me and 15 other people from my program traveled to Prague! It was one of the best weekends of my life. I love Prague it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been/seen! I'll just start from the beginning....

It was about 4 hours by train to get to Prague. We arrived there at about 11pm and it was kind of scary. I'm so glad we were in a big group! The hostel information gave us some (bad) directions to our hostel that said would take 10 minutes from the main train station. 30 minutes later we arrived at our hostel! There were 10 of us staying in that particular hostel and 8 of us stayed in the same room. That was really nice because we didn't have to stay in a room with complete strangers. Our hostel was great! I think most of us agreed that the beds were more comfortable than our dorm beds and the showers were definitely nicer! On Friday morning we got up kind of early and started out the morning right with some Starbucks! We decided that the first thing we wanted to do was go on one of the free tours. While we waited in Old Town Square for the tour to start we got to watch the astrological clock strike 11 and it was not anything special. I learned on the tour later on that they had to add a trumpet player at the top of the tower to make it more interesting because everyone felt the same way I did about it. The tour was really interesting and I learned a lot about the history and different things about Prague. If anyone ever travels anywhere I would recommend any free tour! The tour lasted 2 and a half hours and I was starving. We were told not to eat in Old Town Square because food is really expensive so we decided to head over the the Charles Bridge. After getting lost we stumbled upon this...

The Charles Bridge with the castle and cathedral in the background

This was one of the prettiest views I loved the Charles Bridge! We crossed the bridge after taking numerous pictures and finally found somewhere to eat. I had the most delicious pasta and a beer that I actually semi enjoyed. Afterwards we were determined on finding the John Lennon wall. Again, after getting lost a little we finally found it. It was so cool to read all the quotes and look at the drawings/paintings. I loved the John Lennon wall it was awesome!

We were on a roll with all the sight seeing and decided to go see the castle while we were on that side of the bridge. After climbing up all those stairs we finally got up to the castle and I LOVED IT. It was a really weird looking castle though. It was not a typical castle in architecture but still was really cool. It was by far one of the best views of the city! We walked around the grounds for a while and took A LOT of pictures and kind of relaxed and took it all in. I think this was my favorite part of this trip. I felt so happy and lucky to be there! We went at a really good time because the sun was almost going down and it was not crowded at all. Here are some pictures of the castle....

                                  

                                            

                               

We left the castle and walked all the way back to our hostel and my feet have never hurt so bad in my life! We relaxed at the hostel and took a nap before we went out. Paige Bordy recommended two things for that night and they were both great. The first was to go to a club that played 80's and 90's music on Friday nights. It was so much fun! The songs weren't that great at first but after a little while it started to pick up. We were on the dance floor and all the sudden a bunch of guys with animal masks on surrounded us. It was so funny. Luckily, they let us put on the masks and this is what happened when we did....

Since we did so much on Friday we decided to sleep in a little and get a later start. We really only had one thing in mind for the day, and that was go up to the Petrin Tower. This is an eiffel tower looking thing that overlooks the whole city. We were told to get on a bus and get off at a stop they showed us on the map. Well of course, we ended up getting on the wrong bus going to wrong direction. We stayed on there thinking it would loop around, but it didn't. So we had to get off that and retrace our tracks back. We finally made our way to the correct stop but we still didn't know where to go. This was kind of a stressful situation but we figured out how to get there and decided to do it! We rode the tram up to the tower and took all 200 something steps up to the top. This was also another great view of the city of Prague! 

The Petrin Tower

There was some type of festival going on so we decided to stay up there and hang out. We ate something like lo mein and it was to die for. I have missed Asian food so much! We left and decided to go back and rest for the night to come.

We did something called a Pub Crawl Saturday night. Basically, it is where they take you around to different clubs. This was such a great experience. We met so many people from so many different places. Mine and Allie's favorites were a group of boys and one girl from New Zealand. We had so much fun dancing and getting to know them. We even found out the girl was a rower! They were awesome! The last club we went to was a five story dance club. Each story has different types of music. This place was so much fun I don't understand why Murray doesn't have one haha! Again, if anyone is traveling places and you want to go out to the clubs I would recommend a pub crawl it was worth the money! Also we got a free t-shirt! I told you my feet have never hurt so bad after the first day....after wearing boot heels to this pub crawl I would have happily chopped off my feet. They were in excruciating pain. And I don't normally complain about pain! 

Sunday we had to check out of the hostel at 11 but still got to keep our bags there. We took sunday as a day of shopping. Since our feet (mine and Allie's) were hurting so bad we had to stop and sit down every chance we got. Sunday was a fun day and we got some good deals too! Prague was so much fun I loved every second I was there! I am so lucky to be experiencing this whole trip!

In a previous blog I talked about how I wouldn't get home sick and I'm still not but I just miss a lot of things! John (my humanities teacher) told us there were 4 stages each study abroad student goes through and I am definitely experiencing stage number 2. I miss a lot of foods and the way we do things in America. I miss free refills, ICE, cold anything, having a freezer, having a microwave etc... I'm still having the time of my life and I don't want this to sound like I don't want to be here but free refills and some ice would be good every now and then! 

My classes have not gotten better, but my outlook on them has which has helped. I have just come to the realization that I will be miserable from monday-thursday and have the time of my life on the weekends! 

Regensburg Week 3

I feel like the past couple weeks have been very slow and kind of uneventful being new comers to Regensburg. This past week was definitely an eventful one. 

First things first. One wednesday morning I woke up for class going to take a shower, get in the bathroom and BOOM a new shower curtain. I don't remember if I posted it in a previous blog but my last shower curtain had a large amount of mold on the bottom. I don't know how it happened but I am so thankful of that new shower curtain!

As for school goes, it has really picked up. We started our other two classes today (Monday the 10th) and I went from having hardly any homework, to what seems like over load (Test Friday, quiz tuesday, Test and quiz Wednesday).  Besides the Germ101 and 105, I am taking Hum211 and Civ201. I guess I wasn't thinking when I scheduled my classes because the majority of my semester will be all reading! I am really nervous but I think I will be able to keep up. 

On friday night, a couple of girls and I planned on getting prepared for class and doing to already assigned essay questions for Civ. Six girls all went over to my friend Whitney's room and ate dinner first. While we were sitting on the balcony talking and eating we hear people below us. We get up to see it's the Australian boy we met on the bus earlier that morning. Desperate for as many friends as we can get, we yell down and ask where/what they are doing. They tell us they are going to Dult Festival. We didn't think twice, the Civ homework was not at the top of our list! We all immediately go get ready to go and make our way to Dult. We get in contact with our Australian friend Alex and he says he is in the biergarten. We had a hard time getting in because of how crowded it was that night, but finally made our way in. We were walking around trying to either find him and his foreign friends or an open table, and the open table came first.  The only problem was it was reserved. We all start walking away when we heard a crowd of boys yelling to us that we could sit there.  It ended up being reserved for the Regensburg Soccer team. We sat down, order our drinks and before we know it some of those soccer players are at the end of our table talking to us. This was by far the best night I have had at Dult! I posted on facebook that one of the guys tried to give me a pick up line telling me I could be in Germany's Next top Model...I am tall and have beautiful eyes. That was a little to cheesy for me, I almost gagged. We left Dult with a couple of the guys that wanted to go to a disco club. We soon found out these guys were all about themselves and cocky so we ditched them. We decided to go home after that because we had a bike ride the next morning....

THE BIKE RIDE

I, personally, was so excited for this bike ride. I had not done a lot of physical activity since rowing ended and I knew we were going to have beautiful scenery along the way. We were TOLD it was going to be a nice 8-10 mile bike ride all together. The weather was perfect, we had our bikes all picked out and we started our adventure. It started out to be great. I was enjoying the scenery, talking with friends etc... 4 miles later we stop to take a break and wait for people who decided to go back. So we started back up again thinking "We've got to be getting close we've gone like 5 miles" We take another break and at this point I am tired, and I wasn't afraid to yell it. The only other person that agreed with me was Autumn. She asked john how much longer we had, his response: "we are about half way there." HALF WAY THERE!!?!?!?! I was kind of worried at this point but I knew I could stick it out. Autumn and I fell to the back of the pack and stayed there the rest of the way there. I think the worst part wasn't that I was tired or my legs hurt, but it was my butt being so sore and worn from that hard as a rock bike seat. 

Me and Kristen after we arrived

After 11 miles we arrived to the Biergarten it was the best feeling I've had in Germany so far (besides getting wifi). I was so hungry, thirsty, and tired I could hardly stand it. Of course when we sat down there was a wedding party in the other room so our food would be a 30-45 minute wait. Kristen and I split a meal that had some type of schnitzel and FRIES. The meal wasn't the best one I've had in germany, but I was so tired I ate every bit of my half of the meal. When we finished up and payed, it hit me...I had to ride that 11 miles all the way back. I knew I could do it mentally, but my butt was hurting so bad I could hardly sit down. We walked out towards the bikes and I was not ready for another 11 miles. I got on it anyway and started back up again. I was immediately in the back of the pack as usual. I was sitting in the oddest position for my butt to get a little break of pain. Within less than 5 minutes of the way back Autumn, who I thought was my bike buddy turned around and said she was riding the bus home! I couldn't believe it. I'm going to be honest I was really tempted to go with her, but I decided to stick it out and keep going. The ride back wasn't nearly as bad as the ride there. I think because I was more prepared for what was coming.  The only low part was when I was trying to make a video for Autumn I didn't realize the group was stopping and I pretty much fell off my bike. The good news is, I got it all on video! All in all the bike riding experience was pretty miserable. I have decided ANY ONE who rides a bike is doing it solely to punish themselves. 

The video of me crashing my bike

We got back from the bike ride and didn't have time to take a nap, we had plans to go to dinner with mine and Allie's German friend Stefan. We met him freshman year on the rowing team while he studied abroad at Murray. Allie and I were so excited to see him and get to go out with him. We went to a restaurant where I had Brats, sauerkraut, and mustard and it was delicious! We went back to the dorms, waited for it to be late enough to catch the latest bus (because they go out so late)! We went to a club called Sudhaus. I talked about how fun the Karma place was before because of the music but Sudhaus was even better! The music was great. I think I knew every single song except 3. It was definitely a place I would like to go again!

The next morning/afternoon (Sunday the 9th) I wasn't as sore as I thought I would be but I still couldn't comfortably sit down.  We got up and caught a train, then a bus, then a boat to a Monastery in Wellenburg. The scenery on the bus ride was beautiful. It was hot that day and there were a bunch of people kayaking and canoeing down the river. I would have killed to be in a kayak or canoe it looked so much cooler than the hot boat and so much fun! Once we got there we explored and sat down for a late lunch/dinner. I had a really good time in Wellenburg! 

The Monastery inWellenburg

This past week was a blasty blast and it's only going to get better. I WILL BE IN PRAGUE IN 4 DAYS AND I COULDN'T BE MORE EXCITED!!! 

Week 2 in Regensburg

Last week as a whole was a lot better than the first couple of days! We are starting to get used to everything and we are really finding our way around town.

We spend a lot of time at the bus stop, or on the bus, or trying to figure out when the buses leave, or when we need to catch one. This past weekend I found myself running after a bus when I wasn't even late to the bus stop. Thankfully it stopped for me! You see the darnedest things at the bus stop or on the bus. One time we saw a couple having a fight, then they were back together making out, then they were fighting again. So that was interesting. Also, we have seen numerous people fall because they weren't seated in time before the bus got going (Julie I thought you would like that one). One thing that boggles my mind on the bus, and there must be a reason for it, but the German people ALWAYS stand up before the bus is stopped causing them to jerk and fall on people.  I guess they haven't grasped the concept of waiting until it's stopped? Don't know! The buses are always an interesting experience to say the least!

A couple of people and I started to plan our trips and this is seriously the most stressful thing I have ever done! Do we take a train or is it cheaper to fly? What weekend is the "best" weekend to go where? Where do we for sure want to go, and where can we cut out? The questions go on and on and I don't have an answer to any of them! We have planned our first trip and that was a huge deal! There will be a big group (15 of us) going to Prague on September 13-16 so please keep us in your prayers haha! If anyone has an suggestions on traveling or anything, I am open to hear them!

This past weekend was mine and Allie's first time going out and experiencing the night life of Regensburg! It was interesting to say the least... We have been asking around to all the Germans we talk to asking what is their favorite club or bar to go out to. We came up with the majority of people liked Suite 15. So, Friday night we got a group of us together and went. We took the last bus there which was 11:35 and arrived around 12. When we got there NO ONE was on the dance floor and there was hardly anyone there. A couple of people said it would start to get big in an hour! At 1 o clock in the morning people started dancing? Well, if you know me I of course was the first one on the dance floor, dancing all by myself... Just the way I like it haha! I'm sure every single german there thought I was crazy but I guess that's true! Sure enough at around one the dance floor was poppin'. Also another weird thing was the music. We aren't sure if it was just the night we went on, or if this club was like that all the time, but they were playing a weird techno type of music. This music had no words and was really hard to dance to. There were strobe lights going on and smoke machine in the front by the stage. The whole thing was just really trippy I guess you could say. The next night we did not go to Suite 15 we went to a club called Karma and this was A LOT better than the night before! They not only played music with words but some of them I knew! I got really excited when "Call Me Maybe" came on.  Our one wish is that the buses run all night. I don't like paying for cabs every time we go out.

We are still only taking two classes. Our Ger101 class is taught by a really young woman. This class is pretty fast moving and German is HARD! I feel like I'm in a Kindergarten class learning how to count and our A B C's. The other class we only have on Monday's and Wednesday's and it is pretty interesting sometimes, but really boring at other times. We start our other two classes next week and I am really nervous. I am really enjoying only having two classes.

I am not home sick at all, and I doubt I will be this trip! I am loving every minute of it. I can already tell I am going to be so sad when I have to leave. I do miss my family (winston and leo of course) and all my friends in murr! I think that's all I have to say for now!