Prague! pt. 2

As promised here are a few more pictures from my trip to Prague



Prague at night





I watched this really cool traditional czech performance. They wear sort of german clothese (dirndl and lederhosen type things) but they dance way cooler, with jumping and kicking and yelling involved.



Powder Tower



Example of some of the cool random building artwork they have



Europe's #1 over-rated tourist attraction--the astronomical clock (couldn't be fussed to wait around for it to actually go off, although to be fair it looks kinda cool)



they had lots of cool random jazz performances too

a few more photos to come...


a few more photos later...

Prague!

In Germany people get the friday before and the monday after easter sunday off. And I of course wanted to take advantage of this break, so I decided to go to Prague. It's a 6 hour train ride from Munich, so it was nice to have a longer amount of time than a weekend to go there.

We also thankfully didn't fall for Deutsche Bahn's scam for tickets to Prague. They try to tell people 60 euros round trip is a deal, but it is actually much cheaper to buy a Bayern-Bohemia ticket which covers travel up to the Czech border and then buy a ticket in Prague.

My friend Becca and I decided to go, but because of a lot of last-minute decision making, we were on our way without a place to stay or any idea about what we really wanted to do in Prague.

Luckily we ended up getting a hostel just fine, even though it was a busy holiday weekend (granted the prices were jacked waaay up).

This was truly and utterly amazing though. Probably my most favorite weekend trip I've had so far in europe...or maybe anywhere to be honest.

It's funny because everyone always raves about Prague, but when I got there my initial impression wasn't that great. To me it looked just like Germany except with an eastern European twist.

But once I actually got to really see the place, I totally changed my mind. It's just so freakin' cool!

The architecture is just really amazing there, because Prague has been conquered by and influenced by so many different cultures. There are building styles from every era and even ordinary buildings have cool artwork or statues on them.

The big castle is really awesome as well and there are a lot of nice places by the river and green areas too.

And a major plus is the extreme cheapness of Prague. Beer averages around 1 euro (although apparently locals and cooler in-the-know people can get it for about 80 cents!). And even when we went to a nice restaurant on the top of this big hill I ended up paying 8 euros for a beer and a huge meal, which would have easily been 15 euros in Munich. (Apparently Prague isn't that cheap compared to the rest of the Czech Republic but to someone from Munich its bargain city!)

It was really a fun adventure and somewhere I'd recommend to anyone who has the chance to go there



downtown



art noveau is pretty popular and they have a really famous artist from that style who comes from Prague.



view from the river



my real czech food meal. Kinda like german food---a knödel (dumpling) type thing with yummy meat and then some lemon with cranberry sauce and whipped cream---tasty, cheap, and it sorta reminded me of thanksgiving dinner.

gotta stop hogging the internet and let my roommate use it...so i will post a few more photos tommorrow

Catching Up

So I've been bad about posting again, but these last two weeks have been super busy for me.

I work for an afterschool program part-time, but during the holidays I work full-time. Instead of having large summer breaks in Germany there are a lot of smaller breaks year-round. The first middle two weeks of April are one example.

I've been working from 8:30-5 everyday for the past two weeks. With children. And it's been fun actually, since we have gone to a lot of cool places including bowling, an egyptian mummy exhibition, picniking in the English garden, and rock climbing. Also the kids are better behaved and less sressed out than when I normally see them, and there is a whole lot less of them.

But that doesn't mean the whole affair hasn't been exhausting. Not sure I could have handled more than two weeks to be honest, although I did like getting off work at 5pm instead of 7. Definitely didn't like the whole getting up early thing--although now I feel like I've adjusted to that sort of schedule too well.

On the long easter weekend (you get friday and monday off here. sweeeeeet!) I went to Prague with my friend Becca and the past weekend I went with my boyfriend and 2 other guy friends to Zürich. Both were amazing trips and updates will be coming shortly!

We seem to be having an unusually stable and good-weathered April here in München and the whole city seems to be living it up. And Frühlingsfest (the Spring Festival) has just started, so life is good basically :)

New Camera!

So my resolution was temporarily on hold, because I broke my camera when I was in Italy during the end of February (the Karneval week). The lens apparently misaligned--and for once something of mine broke without me dropping it, although maybe I should have known better to hand my camera to drunken italian men...

Being in Europe I knew that I would need a camera, and disposables are way too expensive to be useful.

I went into the Saturn (German equivalent of Best Buy) on the weekend. I was originally intending only to look, but my impulsive shopper side got the better of me and I ended up buying a Casio Exilim.

To be honest I think I am a bit of child or a superficialist (depending on your point of view:) when it comes to buying tech devices. I think I bouught it mostly because it was tiny (apparently the smallest camera on the market) and a shiny red color :)

It seems to be pretty cool though--easy to use, decent quality pictures, and I can even upload videos straight onto YouTube (so be prepared my friends, for your drunken moments to be broadcast immediately on the internet hahah).

It should be fun to play around with, and I think it is a lot nicer than my Olympus. Plus it was on sale because a new model just came out. Hoping I will get a good use out of it in Prague (!!!) this weekened :)

Resolution

Recently, my roommate's friend came to visit her for a week over spring break. And it was really fun, because showing her around we got to do all the cool things in Munich that we don't usually make the effort to do.

It's funny how once you feel like you live somewhere the amount of sightseeing and exploring you do goes down so dramatically.

But I also know that my time in europe is most likely limited, so I have made a new goal to do one cool thing in Munich a week--I've made a huge list of all the cool things in munich and the close surrounds that I want to do and posted it on my wall.

The goal is one a week, but I am also cutting myself some slack and saying once every two weeks is also okay.

Will try to post the results of my adventures here :)

Indecision 2009

I feel like (at least American) society puts an enormous pressure on us all to decide what we want "to be".

I mean even as kids we are constantly being asked about what we want to be when we grow up. To me, as kids, that's the last thing we should be thinking about.

For the longest time I wanted to be a vet (yeah I know, me and every other little girl in the world, how original I am), since I've always loved animals. But then I discovered that I hate blood as well as chemistry and physics.

To be honest that has been the most constant career idea that i've had to date. After that burst bubble, I have also thought about being a marine biologist, a teacher, a translator, a doctor, a firefighter, a park ranger (okay this one only jokingly)...but nothing has seemed to stick.

In highschool I didn't have a satisfactory answer and in college I still didn't have one (it is some sort of miracle I ended up being able to choose a major). My problem is I'm scared there isn't something I want to or will be happy doing forever---by choosing one thing I am also scared of all the doors that are closing because of it.

As of now, it seems more likely that I will get my PhD in Psychology and then try to do research and teach at a university or something of that sort.

I've been stressing out though, because I keep feeling like I'm running out of time. I feel this pressure to get on the career track and stop fussing around. Also the fact that I've chosen something that will take at minimum 3 years of schooling makes me nervous that I'll be 35 and still in grad school.

Part of me is impatient just to know and stop worrying about it. But the other larger part of me is just worrying.

I am stressing because I need more research experience but just realized how difficult it is to get a paid positions and lack the funds to volunteer full time (which is the type of position I would prefer).

I am also unsure about where I want to attend grad school (the u.s. or europe) and am worrying about application deadlines and how to find information about schools and just basically spazzing out.

But I am trying to follow Bridget's useful advice of just working on getting a research position and applying to grad school later if necessary.

Yet my eye keeps twitching...*sigh*...

Spaghetti with Cheese on Top

Last Friday I was watching a movie with the kids at work about the ocean and the animals that inhabit it. In once scene, it talks about killer whales and shows them throwing around cute furry litle seals and eating them.

This caused one little 7 year old girl to ask:

"Why do the whales have to be so mean to the poor seals? Why can't they just eat spaghetti with cheese on top??"

"Well how would a killer whale get spaghetti with cheese on top?" I responded.

"Hmmmm. That's a good question..." she answered.

Moments like this are what I enjoy best about working with kids :)