Post-Sweden was another typical week of class - the paper I had due in abnormal psych being the only significant change of the week. When the weekends here get so intense, all the weeks of class and work just kind of blend together, so let's not worry about discussing them here. But in exciting news, ELIZABETH came to visit! For those of you who aren't aware, Elizabeth is one of my closest friends for the past 10 years. We started at our new school the same year (5th grade, what up pre-teen awkwardness) and stuck with each other. She goes to Georgetown, and though she's often a massive pain in the ass, I still
After getting lost in the maze of the Barbican (and stealing a Barbican brick), we met up with Elizabeth's friends and then went out for dinner. Friday was a fairly calm night - post-Chilango burritos, we played cider pong in the kitchen (where I had the most epic of game-saving shots - ask me later), and then turned in fairly early. Side note: spooning with Elizabeth BLOWS. Not her fault - the beds are really tiny and our room was an inferno. (Actually, still probably her fault).
Saturday we awoke, grabbed some wonderful Wagamama (aka the British Spice), and then went to Burrough Market, where we enjoyed numerous free samples of jam, salsa, wine, pesto, and cheese. SO DELICIOUS. I could live on free samples. Then we went to the Tate, where we saw the foam room, the red room, the large table and chairs, the weird sex stuff, and the evil black box of doom. We tried to see Legally Blonde but it was sold out, so instead we grabbed dinner, pregamed in the room, and then walked to Camden to hit up World's End, one of my favorite loud crazy crowded bars. Getting home was an issue - let's just say that certain taxi drivers were verbally assaulted, and a Subway sandwich was brandished as a weapon. Another awful night of sleep later, Elizabeth was out of my life for good. (Just kidding. We had a wonderful visit. I just like being a douche to her.)
She was barely gone before another visitor came, this time in the form of Joe Greco. He's studying in Dublin but came to Londontown for some English shenanigans on his spring break. As he arrived, I had a paper to write - busted that shit out in less than 10 hours, got an A-, booya! On Monday we went to Leicester Square and ended up scoring sweet tickets for Legally Blonde, which we decided to celebrate in the Japanese cave restaurant! The food was good, but the service was awful (serious language barrier) and there were some possibly lesbianic moaning noises coming from another cave. Wonderful. After a quick sprint to the theater, we saw the show, which is actually funnier than I remember. Thank you, London, for keeping shows open when New York has decided to close them. This was followed by this exchange at McDonald's.
Alex: *orders his Wispa McFlurry, pays, and receives said McFlurry*
Joe: *orders same Wispa McFlurry*
McDonald's cashier: Oh, sorry, we're out of those.
Alex: *looks down at Wispa McFlurry, back up at cashier*
Joe: You're out of those? *points to my McFlurry*
Cashier: Yes.
Joe: Then what is that right there?
Cashier: *mumbles unintelligibly*
Alex: *loses faith in what he at one point thought was a Wispa McFlurry (and then eats it anyway - let's be real)*
BRB MY LIFE HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY THIS GAME:http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html
We now resume our regularly scheduled blog update.
Tuesday featured class (blah), sight-seeing at the London Eye with Joe and Morgan (yay! - free champagne), a Mexican restaurant, and then a generally sloppy yet awesome Tuesday at The Rocket. Kind of in love with The Rocket. Kind of want to be in a facebook relationship with it.
Wednesday, much sleeping in (after a rough night of sharing a bed again - Joe is as uncomfortable if not more than Elizabeth), then class, then a calm night out for dinner and a few pints. I needed to get some snooze time in before Prague, so Thursday was pretty slow as well - packed, saw Alice in Wonderland, and got to bed. Morgan and I were awake bright and early (5:45am - eww) to head to PRAGUE.
Ladies and gentleman, I know welcome you to....
THE PRAGUE BLOG.
PRAHA OOO LA LA - want your bad goulash
The trip to Prague started with a 4hr bus from London to Birmingham (England, not Alabama) - trust me, it was cheaper, and worth the extra effort. I slept nicely, until the bus turned into a sauna and then, 30 minutes later, the Arctic tundra, but hey it was a good start. The flight was uneventful, and by 3pm we were in Prague - in the fog. It was snowy, cold and gray - why did we book frozen wastelands in January-March, rather than nice warm places like Africa? Anyways, in Prague they use the honor system on the metro, so being uninformed tourists, we hopped on the bus with no idea how to work the ticket machine. Oops. Sorry Prague.
We headed to the metro station, then took the super clean and efficient metro to our stop and found the LONGEST ESCALATOR EVER. No joking. It had to have been 200 feet long.
WHAT IS THIS MADNESS??
Six hours later (just kidding, it only took four and a half to get up that) we were at the ... wait for it ... CZECH INN. God I love this city. Nicest hostel yet, but also the quietest - Morgan and I dropped off our stuff, met our 34 and a half year old roommate (easy, oldster), and immediately left to meet up with Hannah (who'd been there a day already), Allen and Ashley (arriving from Berlin), and assorted Prague-ians. The first stop: a pub near Old Town Square, where we quickly fell in love with the national beer, Pilsner.
The Fat Man Pub
Pilsner. In my mouth. All the time.
Tyn Church in Old Town Square
Post Pilsners, we changed quickly and were off to our first Czech meal! Fun fact about the Czechs: they all smoke. Everywhere. Restaurants, bars, post offices, probably in nursery schools. I would not be surprised to see a little Czech baby with a cigarette in one hand, Pilsner in the other. Such is Prague. Hey - the Cold War's over, gotta capitalize. The restaurant we ended up at (after the one which had five dogs running around in it) was like a smoky bar from a bad 80s movie. I half expected a bar fight to break out between Patrick Swayze and Tom Selleck for the affections of the lovely Melanie Griffith (cue guitar riff). Sadly, this never happened, but my life clock is shorter thanks to all the secondhand smoke.
The Czech delicacy is goulash (with an appetizer of onion soup), which is beef and sausage in gravy with dumplings and horseradish. It's amazing, but we're talking heavy. Like, I may not be able to walk back up those stairs because I'm so effing full of beef and gravy heavy. Good thing we had Pilsner to wash it down with! (No wonder the Prague kids have trouble ... err, staying regular)
After the goulash, Morgan Ashley and I headed to Usudu, this amazing underground bar that had seven different cavern-like bars, each with its own music and all of them filled with smoke. We enjoyed more beers down here, talked, and enjoyed some Czech fashion (sweatpants at a club? Totally acceptable!) We had bigger plans though, so we were off to Lucerna!
Lucerna was a club down the road enjoying an 80s themed night, and we met up with the rest of our group and headed inside. Best exchange of the night:
Douchebag from Chicago: "Isn't the Eiffel Tower in New York?"
*long pause*
Allen: "I'm sorry was that a joke?"
The coat czech line was RIDICULOUS. Not even a joke, we were in it for twenty minutes. The dance party started a little early since we had no choice but to grind up on each other to survive the mob. Also, a French guy borrowed my phone. This has significance. The rest of the night involved Pilsners, lots of dancing, a guy way too eager to encourage people to take their shirts off, and of course, Hannah and I dancing with each other. Turns out we were both 5 minutes late =/
We enjoyed a post-club hot dog (not like that, you perverts), an enjoyable taxi ride (I know EVERYONE wants to hear my version of "Paparazzi"), and a photo shoot on most of Prague's cars made before 1998. We slept wonderfully despite the senior citizen living in our room, and we were up early to start our busy day of sightseeing.
We started off getting some bagels at this amazing bagel place near Old Town Square, Bohemian Bagels. Then it was off to find the Jewish Quarter and see some old synagogues and cemeteries. Great plan, except... it was Saturday. Shabbat. The entire area was closed, and we felt a bit silly for not realizing this earlier. So we took our first of many breaks at the Kafka Cafe, enjoying some coffee and strudels. We walked along the river towards the Charles Bridge, which is an incredible bridge that goes over the Vltava River and has lots of statues and historic architecture.
Tyn Church in Old Town Square during the daytime
Honestly ... no idea what's going on in this sign. No playing in the streets? No cars parked by houses? No idyllic scenes of suburban splendor? Ugh, Europeans and your wacky signs...
We were not happy Jews like this sign would suggest
The poster for Teacher 2.0 ... coming to theaters May 2011
Charles Bridge across the Vtlava River
Once across the river, we went looking for the Lennon Wall (NOT the Lenin Wall. Different man, different wall) This took a little winding and weaving through the streets of Prague, but the 5 of us enjoyed walking around and seeing a bit of the city. We finally found it (near the mini MARKET) and took a lot of pics. It's a really cool wall that's similar to Strawberry Fields in Central Park, lots of Lennon memorabilia, graffiti, and art. We also wrote our names in the "All You Need is Love" heart. Near the wall was a bridge that was covered with hundreds of locks. We wanted to also leave a memento here, but sadly, they sold no locks (though I hear you can find them at Tesco...)
The Lennon Wall
Who's that sexy guy in front of the Lennon Wall? (Hint: it's me)
The locks - too bad we didn't bring one =(
We quickly went to the Church of the Infant Jesus (in which Jesus is depicted as a mischievous little lad with a number of fun costume changes), but honestly, it was Pilsner time. We found a great place near the Lennon Wall with cheap (and I'm talking CHEAP - a 31-krona Pilsner is exactly $1.65, which is CHEAP, by American and European standards. And it's sooooo good. Two Pilsners and several orders of fried cheese later (another Czech favorite), we were back on the streets - and hopelessly lost! Do we take this tram? No maybe we should find the metro. No let's walk here. Now we're going the wrong way. This was us for about an hour, a lot of one step forward and two steps back. We also used the bathroom in like five different restaurants - sorry guys. We finally figured out where we wanted to head, and went to the Dancing Building, a building designed by Frank Gehry that was inspired by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing. We hurried up to the roof before it closed, caught some great views of the city, then headed down for a cocktail in the lounge.
The Dancing House
Following the Dancing House, we were trying to meet Hannah's friends at a microbrewery in an old monastery for dinner - that microbrewery, however, was impossibly far away. Our Czech bartender (the only nice Czech person we met so far) helped us find the right bus, and soon we were back across the river and winding our way up the mountain to an old stadium. The stadium was terrifying - pitch-black, all concrete, decrepit, and abandoned. It's the type of place where people do drug deals (or just straight up drugs) in the movies. We were quite out of our element, and basically ran down the other side of the mountain (through some equally shady areas) until we found ... the monastery! Huzzah! More Pilsner, onion soup, and goulash later, we were ready for a night out.
We pregamed in the NYU in Prague dorms (after a quick nap on Allen's behalf), and had to suffer through the worst game of beer pong I've ever seen. One guy had this special technique that required him to look like a douche and STILL miss most of his shots. Dude, my missed shots take a lot less effort. Then he said the magic words: "Yo, I'm reppin' NYU Stern!" Allen, Hannah, Morgan, and I all went "Ohhhhh...." Everything suddenly made sense. We ditched that disaster and went to Lucerna, a 5-story club near the Charles Bridge that was our home for the next 5 or so hours. Lots of dancing, lots of good music - great night overall. I'm not usually big into clubs, but so far Europe has done a nice job of keeping the club-hopping fun.
Not much sleep and much packing later, Morgan and I did our last bit of sightseeing. We hit up St. Wenceslas Square, had one last meal of Czech food (and one last Pilsner ... miss you baby), and then were back to the airport and Londontown. It was a great weekend, as most of ours have been - lots of sightseeing, lots of food and beverage, lots of inside jokes, pics, and fun.
I really can't believe this semester is more than halfway over. In a way, I feel like I just got here, but the past two months have probably been the longest and most eventful since I got to NYU. It's been truly one-of-a-kind, and wholly unforgettable - one of those semesters that will still stand out in my future. I love it, and with Spring Break around the corner (and that means Dublin, Venice, Cinque Terre, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Athens, and Santorini), it only stands to get wilder, crazier, and more amazing. Thanks for reading kiddos, love you all and happy trails!
By blogchildren... do you mean me? :) You know I'm hooked.
ReplyDelete