It's cold, there's bones, and school starts

Well, it decided to get super cold in Prague these last few days. So it hasn't been quite as comfortable walking around. We went on the Prague tour on Thursday and had to stop for some hot wine at a little cafe and warm up. On Friday we went to a town called Plzen, where they have the Pilsner Urquell brewery. Pilsner is the beer of choice here in Prague. I'm not a big fan of beer, but Pilsner is pretty good. So we went on the tour and got a free tasting. We tasted the beer straight from one of the wooden barrels, which they barely use anymore. We hung around Plzen for a few more hours, but there wasn't a whole lot else to do there. All the towns are really cool towns, but during the winter a lot of things are closed because it's not really tourist season.

Saturday we went to a town called Kutna Hora. This is a really small town, but they have a "bone chapel" here calld Sedlec Ossuary. The chapel is built in the middle of a graveyard and a long, long time ago everybody wanted to be buried in this graveyard - all the wealthy people in central Europe. During the plague and the Hussite Wars there were so many people and not enough room. So they would dig up graves and soon had a huge pile of bones in this chapel. Eventually a wood carver was hired to do something with these bones and he decorated this whole chapel with human bones. It was pretty cool. It sounds a little bit creepy, but it is pretty amazing that someone could take all those bones and create this work of art. The man intended to leave a message with the work as a celebration of life. Here are some pics.

There will be more pictures on my flickr website - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mackenzielee/

Saturday night was the Czech vs. Russia hockey game in the Olympics - playing for Bronze and they were playing the game in Old Town Square on big screens. Old Town Square is really pretty and the oldest part of Prague - where the town started. They had a whole set up there with two big screens and little stands all around selling food and hot chocolate and hot wine. It was really fun. we got in there with all the rowdy Czechs and jumped up and down and cheered with all of them. There was a stage set up and at halftime they put on a little show. Some cheerleaders came out and danced and they played and sang music - most of it being American music - like "hey mickey", so it was a lot of fun. The Czechs ended up winning and we got out of the cold and found a pub nearby. we stayed there for a little bit, but wanted to get home before midnight because the subways stop running at midnight. (They keep their trams running all night long, though - so there is a way to get around).

Sunday, I went to church in Prague for the second time. Last weekend one of the girls on the trip had found an English speaking mass - So some of us k-staters gathered up and found this church. It was a beautiful church! I definitely have never gone to mass in a church like this. It was very ornate and had gold everywhere. It was built in 1220. The church is called St. Tomas. They have an organ there that is decorated beautifully - something I've never really seen at a Catholic Church at home. So we went to this church again yesterday. There is Czech mass before our mass and they also do a Spanish mass. The church isn't heated and it is absolutely freezing in there. They have these little heat pads on the back of all the pews that give out a little heat, but definitely not enough, so you have to stay bundled up the whol time. We want to go the Czech mass sometime, though - they play the organ during that mass. Straight from mass, we decided we'd head over to this shopping area that has an ikea, a Tesco (like a walmart), and a mall. At ikea, Laura and I found a really cheap rug to cover our concrete floor in our dorm room. We have a ski trip planned in two weeks and none of us brought any pants to go skiing in, so we went to the mall and found ski pants. And of course we went to tesco for some essentials. When 7 girls share one bathroom we go through toilet paper so fast and the dorm doesn't supply us with toilet paper. We were with two of our flatmates so we all stocked up on TP. All of this pretty much took all afternoon.

Today we start school! kind of, atleast. We get two weeks to go around to whatever classes we want and then we decide which classes we want to be in. So we get to check out some different studio teachers and find out about their projects before we commit to one. It's different, but kind of nice. Also, there is no school on Fridays, so I get a 3 day weekend every week.

Well, that's about it for now!