Rain, Rain, Go Away

Let me start this post by saying that the weather in Prague is totally fucked. When I woke up this morning, it was 40 degrees and cloudy. When I got out of class, it was drizzling. When I got out of the metro on my way home, it was sunny and really windy. When I went to the gym, it started HAILING out of nowhere. When I got out of the gym, it was cloudy again. When I got off the tram on my way home, it was completely sunny. Now I get that October is a rainy month and the weather isn't going to be all peaches and cream all the time, but come on. That is way too much to handle for one day. Also, I've spent almost my entire life living on the coast of Connecticut, where clouds and storms move west to east. WEST TO EAST. They don't come up from the south, pass over us, stop, backtrack, pass over us again, move in a circle, and then disappear. That shit just does not fly back in the states, but apparently, that's how clouds move in the middle of Europe. Someone should really look into that.

Fall is o-fficially here in Prague, and while I love the cold, it's a little early for 35 degrees at night. Lenka told Alexis that winter in Prague usually doesn't come until around January, and after five straight days where it didn't get above fifty degrees, I'm starting to think that she's lying. The leaves are turning, but as with any metropolitan area, it's not as pretty as it is back home. Apparently it's going to be a banner year for fall foliage back in New England because it rained all summer, and I'm a little sad that I haven't been home for fall in three years. In related news, the Red Sox lost and I'm depressed. Moving on.

Weather update: it was sunny when I started this post, and now there are dark clouds in the sky and it's hailing again. Whaaaaaat. And according to BBC Weather, there's a chance of snow for the next three days. Super!

Brie flew in this weekend to see Prague (and me, I guess) and we had a great time. You can read about her impressions here, so I'm not going to go through the laundry list of things we did. But on Saturday night, we went to a local bar (we call it Piano Bar because there's a piano in it, but I actually don't know the real name) so she could experience burcak, aka the nectar of the gods. When we came into the place, which is pretty small, it was full of Czech people enjoying their drinks and singing along while the old bartender was strumming away on a guitar and some other old man was playing an accordian.

• Side note: Last time we went, the place was empty and Nolan was playing "Let It Be" on the piano when all of a sudden we heard this strange singing coming from the back room. The old bartender was singing along to the song IN FALSETTO in sort-of English. Phenomenal.
  

When Brie and I sat down, he stopped playing and everyone stopped singing and he said something to me in Czech. I said "Uh, anglicky?" (English?) and everyone in the place cheered and yelled "Anglicky!!!" at us. Then he asked in broken English what we wanted to drink, and I said "Burcak, prosim," and everyone yelled "Burcak! Yah!!" at us and laughed. Turns out it's still a little scary to have people yell things at you in Czech, even if they are being friendly. Then we made friends with Allan, an old British man who wandered over to our table and asked us how we knew about burcak. All in all, an excellent night. Oh and Brie, just so you know, that is NOT usually what happens when we come into a bar and can't speak Czech.

In other news, I had my first tangible work of the semester this weekend and I think I did OK. It's hard enough to be out of school mode for an entire summer, but it's even harder when you get to school and you don't have much work for the first month. I'd rather be punched in the face with work than have this extra taste of freedom because that way you're sort of numb to whatever you have to do for the rest of the semester. This weekend I had a thousand word travel writing piece to write and a small quiz to study for, and it was like damn, this is A LOT. Of course, it's not a lot, but it's so easy to fall into that mindset. I'm going to have to make the transition quickly though, because I have another paper due the day after fall break and there is no way I'm writing it while traveling.

The revolving door of friends and relatives visiting continues this weekend with my parents, which should be a lot of fun. It's also my last weekend in Prague for a while, so I plan on taking full advantage of that. But for now, it's reading aka nap time.