Finally up and running

So it has taken me quite some time to finally get this going, or get an email out, so my apologies. A lot has been going on to say the least (including, unfortunately for this blog, my rediscovery of 24, The Office, and other shows available online...), but Prague has been simply amazing. My first hours alone, on the plane and when I got here, I wondered if I had made a crazy decision to come here for an entire semester. America felt very far away very quickly. But Prague felt like home soon enough too. We moved into our apartment within the first week, so that really helped things. I'm living with John, my roommate from Columbia, Chrissie (from UMichigan) and Erica (Villanova) and that has been good so far. We got a great apartment in a great location in Old Town, so we're close to everything and not paying as much as we expected. We've started cooking for dinner in the past couple weeks so that has started to save a lot of money too (not to mention my health a little bit, its pretty uncommon to go out to eat without getting a beer).

Prague as a city is beautiful, and I'm extremely happy with my choice so far. The architecture is amazing, and is even better in person than the really cool pictures you can find online, in guidebooks, etc. There are pubs and restaurants everywhere, and its not rare to sit for a couple hours over food and drinks. The people seem cold at first but you just have to realize that smiling at someone on the street or saying hi just isn't part of their culture; they aren't rude. In fact, anyone you talk to is usually pretty nice. The language barrier is tough at times--like when I brought a jacket to the dry cleaners/laundromat and tried to explain that I didn't want it dried...that didn't work well--but with the limited Czech I know and the limited English people here know, it works fine.

We've had a ton of fun so far. The Super Bowl was really quite the experience--we went to a bar called Beer Factory that had 4 beer taps at every table. You just get a glass and fill up as much/often as you want, and it keeps track of how much it pours in liters and you split it with the people at your table at the end. Amazing idea. Too bad the game didn't turn out as well. The bar was filled with American college kids, most of whom were unfortunately Giants fans, so the ending was that much worse. Oh well, definitely an experience I'll remember for a long time.

The roommates and I took a quick weekend trip to Vienna a couple weeks ago, which was amazing. We stayed at a hostel and took a walk to the center of the city pretty late at night, which was cool to see. We got up really early on Saturday and had perfect weather to see a ton of sights--that city is really, really cool. There are a lot of palaces/museums/churches that are very impressive. It is extremely expensive though, and I'm really glad to be in Prague for that reason...it is far cheaper than anywhere my other friends are.

Classes started this past week, and that has been a good way to keep us from going out every night, so I guess thats a plus. The material in most of them is really interesting, but they are all once a week for 3 hours, so by the last hour its extremely hard to pay attention/be engaged. Hopefully we'll get used to it, and then hour and 15 minute classes back at school will feel like a breeze next year.

Just a reminder that I have pictures up at www.snapfish.com. The email is w.patrick.kerns@gmail.com, and the password is prague.