Curb Your Dog

Bah. So I stepped in dog shit yesterday for the first time, which is surprising considering how much of it is all over the sidewalks. But I didn't realize it until I got to class, and when I propped my foot up on my other knee, the smell just hit me. I apologize to anyone who was in that class.

On Sunday we took a scenic dinner cruise along the Vltava River, which was lovely. The food was pretty bad and the beer was a little expensive (it's both sad and impressive that I now consider anything above $1.50 a pint expensive), but the views of Old Town were pretty incredible. We went under the Charles Bridge, which is beautiful and almost 700 years old. But when we turned around to go back under, BOOM. We hit the damn bridge. It was pretty intense. The captain went underneath the bridge at an angle, and since it was a really long boat, the back end smacked into one of the bridge supports. I was carrying two plates of food at the time walking along the side and I almost fell off the boat. Apparently everyone in the basement thought we were sinking. So the crew was running around, looking to see if there was any damage, yadda yadda yadda, when BOOM. WE HIT THE BRIDGE AGAIN. When the back end bounced off of the one pillar, it swung around and hit the other. Needless to say we were the most photographed boat by people on the bridge that day.

After that fun and excitment, we all climbed a mountain and had a beer. Literally. There are these cliffs north of Old Town across the river, and some wise people turned the property on top into a beer garden. Amazing views of the city. Kush, Kurt, and I got separated from everyone else and had to find our own way home. Kush, a self-professed human GPS, lived up to his reputation and got us there. Props.

Monday was the first day of classes. For some reason, most of my classes are on the 5th of the Academic Center. It's a walk-up. Fuck me. But classes went really well; I can already tell I'm going to love Radio News, what with my deep, resonant radio voice. Pshyeah, whatever. Reporting the Arts seemed interesting, and 60% of the grade is attendance. Whoops, can't skip that one. I don't mind though, the professor is really cool. He used to be the guitarist for Plastic People of the Universe, which is kind of a big deal here in the Czech Republic. Now he's in a Velvet Underground cover band, so rock on. I might drop Czech Art and Architecture because the guy is a bit of a prick and made it clear that if you have a class before or after it (I have both on Thursday), you won't be able to come on some of the excursions and therefore will get nothing out of the class. One kid asked about leaving early from excursions, and he said that if you'll do that you'll miss the concluding point and therefore not understand anything. It's like, hello, we're just going to a bunch of churches and looking at pretty paintings. I don't need you and your condescending "concluding point" to understand what I'm looking at. But I need this course to fulfill my expressive cultures requirement back in New York, so I'm pretty stuck.

I can honestly say, though, that the weirdest thing about classes here is hearing horses trotting around outside on the cobblestones. You're just like, whoa, what century am I in again?

The laundry machines here only take 20 crown coins, of which I had none today, so I went around asking people for change. That was fun. The only other time I've tried to do that it failed spectacularly. I was coming back from the gym, and upon realizing that I left my metro pass at home, I went to buy a ticket. But all I had was a 50 crown bill, and the machines only take coins. So I went into a nearby mall, walked up to the juice stand where I had literally just bought an orange juice and they speak english and asked for a coin. "No," she said with a laugh. Fuck. It took me like 10 minutes to find someone who would give me change. So, with that my mind, I was not looking forward to this. I learned the word for twenty in Czech class, and since I figured any sentence that I could cobble together from a dictionary would be wrong, I just found the word for coin and went around to local shops holding two 10 coins up and asking "Dvacet mince? Prosim?" (Literally: "Twenty coin? Please?) I must've looked like a crazy person. But the nice lady at the Chinese restaurant took pity on the Amerikan and his attempt at Czech, so she gave me the coins. The laundry machines here suck, but hopefully I'll have enough.

Booking travel plans now. It sucks because between last semester and this one, 4 discount airlines have gone out of business. FOUR. So it's going to be a little pricey. I'll do what I can, because I am not leaving Europe until my little list of places is all checked off.