I'm busy studying..

Cesky Krumlov

mcornish — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:03:00 GMT

Wow, I have been bust but here is the update for the last week...it is going to be brief because I have to be up in 3 hrs to get on a bus to Poland...

We travelled to Cesky Krumlov last weekend- A very cool little town in the Czech. On the way there we stopped at Pibram prison, which is where the Soviets sent political prisoners and made them mine for uranium. We also stopped at the Platan Brewery. Now that was a sight to see! Haha of course we finished it with a tasting...the dark beer was by far the best. Me and Paul roomed together; he is a cool kid from Boston so of course we get along.

That night we went out of course...we went to the "Music Bar" and had buckets (literally) of mojitos...yummy

Friday we toured the Cesky Krumlov Castle with Bryce, an American who now lives in the CZ. He was a real cool guy and had a lot of info. The castle was cool because it has the same set-up of everything inside as it did in its prime. We then had the afternoon off, which I spent most of sleeping. Friday night we had a group dinner at the Egenburg brewery. What a great time, Eva set it up for us to have our own private band which we danced the night away too. Did I mention I never want to leave this country?

Saturday we went for a hike. We toured the Sudenland which is the land that Czechoslovakia gave to Hitler to try and stop war from happening (obviously didn’t work) It was cool seeing what used to be towns, great views and fighting off tics. It was a good 6-7 mile hike, but the views were awesome and it was good to get outside and walk around. After some resting a bunch of us went out for food to a place where Bryce was playing his guitar. Again another awesome night. To put the night into perspective I had to walk one of our professor’s home, as she was wasted and couldn’t find her way.

Sunday, simply put, was awesome. We went "white-water" rafting, only due to a lack of snow this winter is wasn’t really "white-water" at all. Ever float down a lazy river? That’s what it pretty much was, only in an 8 person raft, and another 7 rafts floating with you. It involved very little paddling, the sun was out, and awesome people in my boat. We floated for 5 hours down the river! I could have done it for days! After that we came back to Prague...home sweet home...

Since then I have basically been busy doing school work and going to class. Met a few people from Yale as they are using the same classrooms as us.

Well it's 12:30 here and I have to be on a bus at 4:30 to go to Krakow, Poland for the weekend and I still have to pack so its time for me to go. Sorry for the brief and delayed update, but I really have no free time here as I am always on the go...don’t get me wrong, I love it! Possibly an update before Monday but don’t count on it. Should be an interesting trip....

Hope everyone is safe and enjoying their summer back home, I know I am!

Stay tuned for more...

Gallery: Cesky Krumlov

mcornish — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 08:56:00 GMT

Weekend

mcornish — Thu, 5 Jul 2007 02:37:00 GMT

Just letting you know there wont be updates until the earliest next Monday. We leave for Cesky Krumlov which is in the Czech Republic, but is a ways away. I wont be having any internet connection. We are going to a remand prison, brewery, police training grounds and im sure a Cathedral or 2, and who knows what else...

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYONE!! Im off to a BBQ now

Kutna Hora and more..

mcornish — Tue, 3 Jul 2007 21:28:00 GMT

Well it’s been a busy last few days; I finally have a day off! It's nice to just relax and take a break...catch up on sleep and sober up....I'll fill you in about the weekend--

Friday we went on a trip to Kutna Hora, it’s a fairly small town about an hour away from Prague. It was a cool little town with some even cooler sights. We first went down into what used to be silver mine. We donned out white coats and hard hats, grabbed a huge flashlight thing and climbed down a billion stairs. About 20 of us went in a group with a wicked hot tour guide haha. It was pretty funny down in the mine, the tunnels are about 5ft high sometimes shorter, and reallllly narrow. I bashed my head on the roof no joke easily 20 times..Thank god I had that hardhat on. The best part was watching some of the "larger" members of our group try to fit through these tunnels...priceless. We then went to another Cathedral-we do that a lot...then off to the bone church. It was a decent sized church...with 30,000 thousand people’s bones in it as the decorations. So freaking creepy. There were chandeliers, coat of arms, huge pyramid things and just bones everywhere. It was freaking creepy (did I mention that) I added a few pics. Some of the bones had holes in the skulls from wars, and a lot of the bones were from the black plague...sweet. It’s hard to describe how it was, its one of those you have to be there things. blech. Then back home.

Ha that night was one to remember...well I remember most. Best part was coming back and calling Aud. haha I think she talked to everyone of my flat mates and she just laughed at us the whole time.

Sunday July 1- I had a photo safari for my visual class then we went to Kost Castle, about an hour drive. It was cool, think of a castle in your head and that’s what this was. Had the big walls and towers and such. Had a torture room where there was all this torture stuff on display that was used way back when. Pretty gross, and sounds damn painful. It was a cool place to see, but doesn’t really rank that highly compared to the other sights I’ve seen. Did nothing after we got back because I knew Monday was going to be a long day.

Monday July 2- Long freaking day, but I think a lot of that is due to the fact that I had classes. 8:30am we had to go to the courthouse and watch some of a trial. It was cool to see how their system worked, but I couldn’t understand what was going on...it was all in the impossible Czech language. After court I went to class for three hours, two hour break and back to class for another three.

O man was last night interesting! Eva, our tour guide person, who does everything for us...classroom stuff, trips, housing...she’s just awesome. Well it was her birthday yesterday...and she made the mistake of going out with us. My guess is she is early 30's, but does not act it at all. Because she was going out with us, EVERYONE came out, including my professor who I took shots with haha. It was quite a night to say the least.

Being July 2nd it hit me that I only have a month left here as I fly back Aug 2nd. That freaking sucks, it is amazing here! I already dread going home. Yeah it'll be good to see the fam, aud, and friends that I obviously will not be seeing till then, but I will miss this place.

Today, July 3rd- Like I said, not doing much of anything. I need to go to the grocery store again...always an experience, and I have some reading and work to do. JULY 4TH TOMORROW! Pretty excited about that...wait, not that much, I’m not in the US. Haha there is a local restaurant owned by an American and they are having a BBQ and party there, so I will definitely be hitting that up.

Remember feel free to call me here at (914)410-6616, it’s a NYC # so it won’t be long distance. I can share stories that I shouldn’t write on here.

Added more pics..Its hard to select which ones to add. I have well over 300 already!

Haha peace out- I’m going to go get a gyro...mmmm

Terezin

mcornish — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 05:04:00 GMT

Hey all, just thought I'd add a quick update on today...

We took a bus to Terezin, located about an hour to the north of Prague. Terezin was a Jewish Ghetto/Concentration Camp during WWII. We saw the town, the museum, and the prison. It was not a death camp, but many still died there because of starvation, and some executions. However, most of those who went to Terezin were not there long as most were sent to extermination camps from Terezin. It was interesting to see everything, and very hard to imagine the town years ago, with its overcrowded, diseased, doomed inhabitants. It was a somber place and helped you realize how trajic the Holocaust really was. I added a few pictures.

We got back around 6 and then had some mexican for dinner (When am I going to eat Czech food??). Got some stuff at the grocery store, did some work and here I am.

No plans yet for tongiht, probably going to the pub to play some fooseball for awhile, but then back to bed hopefully. Long day tomorrow- going to Kutna Hora and going to a bone church and silver mine. Should be fun, but another long day. Ok well my flatmates are bugging me to hurry up...they must want to get beat in fooseball so I will see you all later...

Hey all

mcornish — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 02:50:00 GMT

Hope all is well back in the states! All is definitely well here in the Czech Republic!!

So since my last update I've done a few cool things, but also relaxed a little.

Headed out to a Communist Museum on Tuesday, which was interesting but not that big. Then went an Irish Pub for awhile (Yeah...Irish Pub) and met some girls and guy who were from Florida and only in Prague 1 night, so we had to take them and show them the town...Lets just say waking up to be at class at 9 on weds was rough.

Class was alright, it was my War Crimes class which seems pretty interesting, but has a lot of reading involved. After class I worked on some of that reading. Went out for awhile later in the afternoon and just hung out with everyone. Last night I went to a Thai restaurant, awesome food. Yeah I know, it’s a little weird eating Thai while in Prague, but it was sooo good. Came back watched a movie, and went to bed at a decent time.

Today so far has been in interesting one. After sitting around for awhile this morning me and a bunch of the guys decided to go for a walk. I finally waited around to watch the Astronomical Clock that goes off every hour in the Town Square. I think it was a little anti-climatic but if your in Prague you have to see it. I then suggested we climb the Tower at Charles Bridge. It was a cool view but it started to rain while we were up there. Then someone had the idea of walking up Petrin Hill once the rain stopped. We had no idea how far it was, or much we had to climb. After making it to the woods we had to zig-zag our way up this hill on paths until we finally reached the tower, which is kind of like the Eiffel tower in France, just not as high. So we paid out 40 koruna and started climbing. Just a reminder...we had climbed the tower at Charles bridge already, walked throughout the city, then climbed a giant hill...To get to the top of Petrin Tower is 299 steps, but the view was worth it. It's the highest point in Prague so you can imagine the view. All of a sudden a huge storm rolls up on us...with lightning. Mind you this highest point in all of Prague is made of steel. Steel + Lightning = not good things. So we rushed down the tower and waited for the storm to pass, and then slowly made our way back across the bridge to our flat, where I am now writing this.

No plans for tonight, I need to go to the grocery store witch is always fun when no-one there speaks English...wish me luck

Also I added some more pictures from my adventures including climbing Petrin Hill, Charles Bridge, the astronomical clock, and the Communist Museum...

Audrey

mcornish — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 03:33:00 GMT

In case anyone is interested Audrey is keeping one of these from her trip in china. The link is http://journals.worldnomads.com/aemaus/

Gallery: Prague

mcornish — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 23:37:00 GMT

Finally a free moment

mcornish — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:10:00 GMT

Well after almost 6 days in Prague I finally have the time to sit down and work on a travel blog. It has been a busy week.

I have decided to keep a journal not only for you all to read about and see what I am doing, but to also keep the memories for myself.

Hopefully I can remember all I have done until this point...

After my mishaps with the airport and getting here I have had an amazing time. Our first full day here we all met at 9 to do a walking tour of the area around us. I live right in the heart of Prague, right next to old town square. For those that know anything about Prague I am a block away from the square, the one with the cool astronomical clock. We walked around the "Old Jewish Town" which was pretty cool. There is a bunch of old synagogues because way back when Prague had a huge Jewish population. We saw a couple of museums full of Jewish history because when the Germans took over the Czech Rep. they took anything in the country related to Jews here for storage, but never had the opportunity to destroy them before they were booted out. Also got to visit a Jewish Cemetery that had approximately 60,000 dead buried there, all within maybe the size of a football field. After that we returned to out apartment and had the rest of the day free. I just hung around and got to know my flat mates. A bunch of real cool people.

Fri night we went out and did some bar hopping which included Harley Bar (yes, as in Harley motorcycles) fat boys bar, and the chateau (sp?)..I came home when the sun was coming up just to give you an idea of the night I had.

Sat 6/23

Prague Castle- What an awesome place. It’s located on the other side of the river on top of a large hill. We met up and jumped in a bus to drive us up there. The place was simply spectacular and hard to put in words. I will add pictures for all to see. It currently holds the President of Czech Republic. The castle had a huge Cathedral in the center of it which was amazing. It was shut down in the morning for a few hours, so myself and a few other students decided to stick around until it re-opened to see it, and I am so glad I did. Even though it rained on us all day. The weather here is crazy...it goes from sunny and hot to cold in rainy in 5 minutes, 5 times a day. After touring the castle me and some students decided to walk back down the hill and over the Charles Bridge to our flat, as it decided to stop raining on us. Charles Bridge was cool, a little overloaded with tourists but still an interesting bridge.

Kind of just walked around for the rest of the day orienting myself with the city, DEFINATLY not as easy to get around here as in NY! There is no #'d streets, and obviously everything is in a foreign language (more about the language in a little bit). I did however stumble across a restaurant right around the corner from us with awesome food. Red hot and Blues- it’s a tex-mex place owned by an American from New Orleans. Food here is so cheap, especially compared to NYC- I love it.

It was a girl in our group’s bday so we all headed out to a club, 4 stories and cheap beer. Had a porch that overlooked the Charles Bridge which looks beautiful at night. Again, came home with the sun up.

Sun 6/23

Old Prague Castle- Headed up to the old Prague Castle...not as cool as the first castle, but did have an awesome overview of the city. On way home our director Dr. Greek had his wallet stolen out of the metro, which must suck big time. Prague isn’t full of crime but you have to be careful (more on this later too).

That night went across the bridge with the girls and a good sit down meal at a Czech place. Went back to their place for awhile and then bed, limited my booze consumption to one glass of wine...I needed a break! Especially because I had class the next day...

Mon 6/24

In the morning we went to the Police Museum. Cool place had a lot of cool history stuff from the Secret Police and stuff, as well as exhibits on famous crimes committed in the country.

Then WHAM back to the real world. Class. Haha we were a little spoiled not having class the first few days. I had both my Crime in an emerging democracy and visual criminology....6 hours of classes...ugh

Had some amazing ice cream for jen's bday...then went to bed...it was pouring out again and I had no interest in going out unlike many of my roommates.

Tues 6/26

Finally a day off. So far today I’ve been shopping, finished unpacking and relaxed. Going to just go walk around in a bit.

The language here sucks...very hard to pronounce or understand. Most people speak English, and some just act like they do not...Americans as a whole are not loved here, but that is mostly because of Bush.

Crime- haha a little different than the states. Have to very careful of pickpockets. Also drug dealers and hookers. The other night I had some girl grabbing my "Junk" and kept saying party time. She finally left after me and my roommate started yelling at her. Oh the crazy stories I have...I told some Czech girl I was from the US and she goes "F*&@ you" when she actually said something that sounds like it, only it means really. Didn’t find this out till the day after....

In other great fantastic news my computer has crashed....freaking sweet. I’m using my roommates right now because mine is beyond screwed. So I’m a little pissed about that.

Ok enough writing...I have a phone here in Prague that has a NYC area code...so if anyone wants to call it won’t be long distance to Europe, it’ll ring into this computer the # is (914)410-6616

Hopefully I can write in this more so each entry won’t be as long. Miss everyone!

Peace

I posted some pictures too...