oh.. here's the project

Here's the boards I printed off for my project.. hanging up in the studio room still.... and I got an ´Excellent´.. which is an A. wahoo!

back in prague!

Well, I'm finally back after all the traveling! I just went to 5 different countries- kinda crazy! I had a lot of fun traveling around with everybody. After Vienna, I went to Budapest, which was a really cool city.. actually Budapest is 2 cities - Buda and Pest and different sides of the river. Together they have a huge Parliament building, a royal palace, and a castle - interesting that they have all 3- and of course other things to see. We trekked around both the cities in one day in the hot, humid weather. It reminded me of Kansas. The hostel we stayed in was super hippy. They had a huge drawing of Bob Marley on our yellow walls in our room.. I forgot to take a picture. It was a pretty cool set up, but definitely different than all the other hostels we stayed in throughout the trip.

Anyhow, now I have these last few days to try to get the room all cleaned up and packed, as well as trying to see some last things we haven't done yet in Prague. There's always more to see, but there's just a couple things I feel I should see/do before I leave! Hopefully, I will come back to Prague sometime though.

Today I got a few things done, though. I mailed two packages full of all kinds of stuff back home. I also picked up a package that has been hanging out in different locations around Prague for over a month. My mom had sent it forever ago. They post our names on a list in the lobby of the dorm if we have a package, then they give us a slip of paper, then we head to the post office to pick up our package. Well, over a month ago, I had my name on the list, I got a slip of paper and I went to the post office, except all they gave me was a letter and a copy of the paper my mom had filled out to send - telling the contents of the package. They checked a box on that paper that said "returned to sender" and then there was a letter written in Czech. I figured they sent it home since that was what it said and I figured the letter explained why. I figured as long as it was going back home, then that's okay. Well, they never got it back at home. So before I left on this last trip, I got together with my Czech buddy to have him read the letter and help me figure stuff out. So he told me it was at this place because they had to check it - something about customs and we could go pick it up, but by this point I didn't want to pick it up anymore cuz it's just more stuff to take home. So he wrote an email saying we just wanted sent back to the sender because they do that after a certain amount of time, anyhow. I went on my trip. I came back and my name was back on the package list in the lobby! and it was on there twice - one time it was incredibly misspelled, but it was me. So I got another slip saying I had soemthing at the post office and another letter I couldn't read. I talked to my Czech buddy again and he said there was miscommunication and they had sent it back to the post office! It'd been there for almost 10 days and I thought there was a charge usually when your package sits there for days... so I was scared to pick it up, but worried they would never send it back home. It has my running in mp3 player among a couple other things, so I wanted it back. So I went to the post office when I mailed stuff and decided I'd ask about the package and if it cost too much, I just wouldn't pick it up.. I tried to ask the lady - who of course didn't speak English - I had handed her the letter that I had no idea what it said.. A lady behind me spoke really good english and heard me ask so she asked the lady in Czech and then told me there was no charge! Which was awesome.. So I got my package- which was adding a little bit of unneeded stress! Sorry, long story. Now I have poptarts and granola bars as well as face wash! fun stuff.

But, incredibly enough, we dealt with two post office workers that did speak english when we dropped off our packages and laura picked up an empty box. Then I got some laundry done - which was needed SOOO bad.. I was starting to smell. ha.
Then, (fortunately and unfortunately for my money) I found out there was a big sale going on at this store called promod - which is so so cute. So I HAD to go out there and ended up buying a skirt- I couldn't resist and I've been wanting to buy a dress all semester - so I guess that will do. I also heard tonight that some other stores are having big sales too.. yikes.. so tempting.

Laura and Chris leave tomorrow for Spain - where they fly out of to go home on the 3rd! So, the remaining people all went out to dinner at a new place, but it had the traditional Czech food, so I kinda got a meal I get alot... oh well.

Well, that's about it I think. I need to figure out what I need to pack up for Spain and if there's more to send home before I leave on Thursday for Spain.

Here's some pics of the trip.. but I posted them all on my photos page..

vienna

hello. sorry I have not posted in so so long. I'm in Vienna, Austria right now. I traveled with the bros to Amsterdam, Brussels, Cologne (germany) and munich. They parted in Munich to fly home and hopefully they remembered to pick up my bag that was waiting in a locker in the amsterdam airport. We had a fun time- we watched lots and lots of soccer since the boys are obsessed, but it's been pretty fun to be in Europe right now with all that going on. Too bad we lost today!!!
Anyhow, Austria has been really fun. We saw an awesome palace yesterday with the largest area of gardens I have ever seen.

Oh yea. and President Bush was in town yesterday, which was cool even though we definitely had no idea until the man checking tickets on the train told us that our 'captain is in town'.

Well I better go. I hope everyone is doing well! I'm heading to Budapest tomorrow and then I'll be back in Prague for a few days. Then it is spain (where we might hit up the running of the bulls if the time is right) and then home! July 6. I'm getting pretty excited for the comforts of home!

We met a homeless man in Amsterdam who has Bin Laden in his basement...
he's waiting for the reward price to go up.

a little something..

I love about Praha.
Walking to the grocery store. Riding the subway. Walking to restaurants. Having a corner store. Big City. Dumplings. Hardly doing homework. Bohemia Bagel. The restaurant on the corner. Cheap. Cheap Beer. Boat Parties. Drinking games. Club in the basement. Charles Bridge. I believe its a never ending city. Art homework. Drinking beer on the subway. Cute dogs. Barely using an alarm clock. Sleeping. Alot. Always having a designated driver - trams. Czech surprises (gotta love 'em). Cuba Libres (rum and coke and lime). Tourists. Cute little kids. Making toast on the stove top. Watercoloring. H&M. Getting packages. Visitors. Goulash. Cola Light. Zara. Kebab stands (a great thing about all of europe). Old Town Square. Feeling accomplished simply by communicating with a Czech person. Sandwiches in the architecture building. Sculpture teacher that looks like a Harry Potter character. Dance parties.

A little something everybody can enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

What I've been workin' on

These will be put into the comp and photoshopped into the site...hopefully.

not much

Hello. Well, there's not a whole lot to write about right now. I've been slaving away in my room working on my final project for my studio class. It is all I have left, so that's good. It's due on June 12 - Monday. I'm trying very, very hard to get it done by Friday, so I can have the weekend to pack up stuff and get some things done. So there probably won't be much sleep tonight or tomorrow night. I will be leaving on the 13th to meet my brothers in Amsterdam and then I will be traveling to Amsterdamn, Belgium, Germany, Vienna, and Budapest until the 25th. I will be back in Prague until the 29th and then I will fly to Spain and be around there until I leave from Madrid to go home. It sounds so close when I write it out like that. There's not much time left in Prague, so hopefully I will get this project out of the way and enjoy this weekend.

People are starting to leave Prague to go home, now, so we're starting to have to say some goodbyes. One of the guys from kstate is leaving later tonight, so we're going to have a last Prague dinner with him at our favorite Czech restaurant across the street - cheap and very good. He's the first from kstate to leave and the rest of us leave within a month!

Anyways, besides working on studio, last Saturday we organized a little Pub Crawl to take place here in Prague. Our campus and dorm sits at the end of the Green Line on the Metro, so we went to the way other side of the Green Line and started a pub crawl. At every stop on the line we got off the metro and found the nearest pub. There are 13 stops total and it took quite awhile to get through all the stops. I, of course (and the rest of the ladies), couldn't complete the whole pub crawl. I stayed and hung around til the end, but I definitely couldn't take 13 drinks - especially since the beers are 1/2 liters.
We had to stop at 2 gas stations at two stops because there wasn't a pub nearby. It was a pretty humorous afternoon/evening/night out.

Here's the metro map... we did the green line

The group..at the second stop..

the sun came out today

THE SUN CAME OUT TODAY! Wow... after a late night out last night, I woke up this morning to see the BLUE sky out the window and the sun shining in. I didn't get much sleep, but I couldn't stay in bed because I was so excited to see this and I didn't want to miss it in case it went away. It still wasn't hot and was a bit chilly when the sun was behind a cloud.

So I set out today to take some more pictures of my site for my project in Old Town Square - I need to use these to create some perspective drawings for my final project. I then continued to shop around a little - found some souvenirs for some people... which was kind of a pain in the butt, because I was practically being harrassed in one store. There wasn't too many people in the store and like 4 guys were working there. They just kept talking to me about everything in the store and trying to make jokes, but all I wanted to do was mind my own business and look for souvenirs! So, of course, they drove me away and I didn't buy anything from them... badgering people doesn't work - it just freaks them out! So I made my way to a different one, where they still wouldn't really leave me alone to look, but it wasn't nearly as bad. I was looking at some things and they're all in front of me, but they point out to me how "they have different pictures...see this one... and this one ..." blah blah.. I can see it! Thanks. So I pick one up to look and set it down and they say "you don't like?"... I'm just trying to look around! So, yea, that's my rant for now.

I also went in to a classical music store and purchased a cd of a Czech composer, Bedrich Smetana. One of our Czech Culture classes had the topic of Czech music and we listened to Czech classical music most of the period, so I wrote some names down that I liked.

Anyways, from there a I got a text message telling me some people were going to Bohemia Bagel. I don't think I've mentioned this wonderful place in Prague, yet. This place is usually full of backpackers - or Americans - or tourists of some sort. It serves breakfast all day, but also has hamburgers, sandwiches, and bagel sandwiches. You don't easily find bagels over here in Prague. So I'm addicted to the Turkey bagel sandwich. I can't help it. You order at the counter and take a seat. They have FOUNTAIN drinks - I miss pop from the fountain sooo bad. It also has FREE refills and ICE. Yes, it is great.

Bohemia Bagle - that's my Turkey Bagel sandwich in front

So we sat there for a good while enjoying ourselves. Then I had to head back to the dorm room. My studio project is due June 12 and that is coming up quickly. It's starting to come along, but as always, I can't help but be nervous about how its going to go. It is definitely difficult for me to pull really late nights here, but you gotta do what you gotta do and I'm sure I will have to do it this next week.

Well, that's about it for now. We went out last night - 2 of the engineering guys finished their last final, so they are done and wanted to go out. We ended up at a bar where we met a group of Syracuse students that are here for a couple weeks taking a film course - they're film majors. It was fun chatting with them.
Alright - it's my bed time.

Oh yea! There were fireworks out our window on the top of this hill tonight. It was pretty awesome.