Yesterday we did a tour around Prague with our house mother Zuzana. She is a very nice and interesting person and it was cool to see Prague from the view of someone who has lived here both many years ago and today. We got to go to the castle and see many sights such as monasteries, churches and beautiful buildings. After our tour we went to Andel, which is a shopping center and were able to get Czech cell phones. It was only about $45 for the phone and the minutes! We also got hot wine at the National Gallery which is a very popular drink here and is sold everywhere. Then later we went to dinner and hung out at a pub. The food here is pretty cheap, dinner was only around $7.
Today we went to an orientation for all of the students in the Eastern and Central European Studies program. It was held in a beautiful old church. After the orientation we walked around Prague for a while, had lunch at a little cafe, got our student IDs and went to Tesco (Czech Walmart). The towels here are ridiculously small so we wanted to get some decently sized ones so as not to risk indecent exposure every time we want to shower. I also got a pillow since the ones here are almost completely flat. We were very proud that we were able to find our way to Tesco and back because the streets in Prague go every which way and change names frequently. I was obviously very helpful in figuring out the directions.
A few interesting things happened to me today. One, I sat down in my chair and it immediately broke and fell to the ground. This was quite the self esteem boost. Two, we have been trying a little to say some words in Czech at stores and to people around us. In one of the shops we were in the shopkeeper told us not to even try to speak Czech because it was too difficult to wait for us to just mess it up and then start speaking English. This was after pretending that he didn't understand what we were saying in English just to give us a difficult time. Lastly I was resourceful and used my swiss army knife to cut my orange when I couldn't peel it.