Beef Goulash and spaceship

Yesterday we went to the Black Theatre (homepage) watching a performance with neon lights. Was ok for the first 15 minutes, but then it got boring. There where some sketches between the plays which was supposed to be funny - but after a while it got quite anoying instead. So all in all, nothing I will go to see again, then I would rather go see the other theatre we saw a couple of days ago.

Had beef goulash for dinner today, I think it was ok. Some meat, white bread and onion swimming in brown sauce. Reminded me of the Norwegian lobscouse (translated according to the dictionary) - without the vegetables.

Since we have the language-course in the morning, the rest of the day goes by trying to relaxe a bit. Tried to find the right building and faculty to get/give some papers/signatures, but I gave up after 30 minutes. Will try to search some more tomorrow, but they did not seem so happy about me wanting to get all the documents before the school opens in end of september.

We went to a mix of bar/student house/spaceship -looking place yesterday. Do not have any good pictures of it, but can try to explain it. Looked something like Samfundet in Trondheim, with strange and spaceship/metal/future- chairs and furniture. We saw alot of dogs inside, they served real Absinth and they showed computer-made shortmovies on a linen cloth. Shoud definitively show more shortmovies in pubs in Norway too :)

One more thing that is surprising here. Inside the movie or theatre (or hospital?,firestation?,swimmingpool?) you will always find a large bar that serves everything.

Todays czech word: teplota - temperature
Todays meal: Beef goulash with dumplings

Movie - Skeleton key

Went to see the movie Skeleton-key yesterday, with english voice and czech subtitles. Quite good movie, with an interesting end I must say. Only 30 NOK to see a movie, and 20 NOK for nachos and dip, is not a bad offer. Also a pub in the area right before you enter the audience.

After one week learning czech I must say that I haven`t learned alot, but I will hopefully understand some more after one more week.

Yesterday I did not have any beer or alcohol at all - hurray :) Will try to compensate for that fact today. We are going to Black Theatre - Black Box today, so we will probably party for some hours afterwards.

Todays czech word: nudný - boring
Todays meal: McDonalds menu of something - 30 NOK

1. From the Skeleton Chruch in Kutna Hora
2. Beautiful view from a Garden restaurant
3. Royal Garden by the Prague castle
4. Ice-cream figures.
5. How a foreign spell my name for the first time :)

Sightseeing to Kutna Hora

Yesterday we went to Kutna Hora to see the Skeletton Church and some other church/building. We could see a wedding, and they seemed to be very young - like 12 year olds. But this was not common our guide told us. Since we where a bit out of town it was even cheaper for beer and food, so we had a dinner in a very good restaurant. Got myself a new czech mobile-number so I will not be checking my norwegian one so often. Please ask me if you do not have the number.

Since it was sunday we just had to go to town. But I am getting really tired of writing how cheap the drinks are (30-50 NOK for one drink/shot), and how mutch fun it is - so lets just sum it all up: Did not manage to use more than 2-300 NOK the whole night - and came home at 7 AM. So I am quite proud of myself since I am already up and functional at this time of the day.

I will have to use the sun and get some food right away, so so long for now.

Todays czech word: prominte - sorry
Todays weather: Sun,sun,hot,sun,warm and beautiful

Party and dancing all night

Did go out yesterday. First we went to see a theatre. I was one of the few people that enjoyed it. I think it was a very good combination with dancing/movie. There was several large carpets in the background which they played different movies on. And when one character "walked out" from the movie screen there was also the same person walking into the stage. If you can understand what I am trying to say.

Afterwards we went to a very good restaurant. In my imagination it is exactly how I see a German beer-cellar. There where large wooden-tables and chairs, and 2 floors. The 2. floor was open in the middle so you could look down. In total we where something like 40 persons from our group, so we occupied 2 large tables. After eating and drinking there for a couple of hours (till 2 AM).

We then walked around once again. We found a polish man who "knew where the best disco in town where". We followed him some time and ended up outside a sleazy place. "100 CZK in entrance and you get 1 beer free, ya" - he shouthed in bad english. We still didn`t want to go inn so he said: "you can come in for free, they are open until 5 o`clock, ya". We still wasn`t sure this was really a good idea. So 5 minutes later he left without telling us, and according to the taxi-driver the place was suppose to close in 10minutes. Thats why there where no people walking in or out.

At last we found a very good bar ( how we got there noone knows, what the name was: noone knows). After some dancing for a while, all of a sudden a crazy boy jumps up (as we found out he was from Finnmark and his name was Tor) and starts dancing like a maniac, lunatic, stark raving madman, loonie and a wacko at the same time. We stayed at the place until 5:30AM, found the Metro station and headed straight back home.

Today I slept for 2 hours, went to the language-course and saw a czech comedy-movie from 1984 where the plot was:" 2 people from another side of czech is going to Prague to study for a doctor. We follow them and a boy from Gambia through the first year. He likes to wear the "Moldovan-national-costume" and wants to learn how he can get a girl." As you can, or can not imagine, this was not the best film I have ever seen ( or slept to, as I was doing 50% of the time).

Todays mission: Try to find a park to sleep in.
Todays czech word: prosim - please
Yesterdays drink: bucket of mohito ( we shared a bucket of mohito-drink costed 1000CZK - 3-400 NOK), 6 pivo, shots of something, 1 water and 1 gay-bottled ice-tea ( 0,2l bottle for 15 NOK or something in a fancy restaurant)

Prague castle

Did go to Prague castle yesterday. Walked around for about 3-4 hours with our own guide. Pretty large and nice place, but we all got hungry and sore feet - so we where very happy at the time when we found a "mexican" restaurant. There we learned that if it says (literarly): "nachos with cheddar cheese salsa", it is not nachos with cheddar cheese on top and regular RED salsa. But nachos with yellow cheddar cheese salsa. Some of us wheren`t very happy for that. Later that night we went out and found some fancy bar with karaoke. Without the czech songs we could choose from alot of Elvis, Beatles, Spanish and Kylie Minogue. And the most original presentation of "Frank Sinatra - My way" I have ever heard :). He literary did it his way. After some turns back and forth we found the night-tram. Night-trams are genious. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it is possible to meet a place in town and take tram back home for free (if you have a monthly pass ofcourse). Something we should get in Norway too.

Today I have just wandered aroung town once again, and we are going to the black theatre to see some show, and then take a couple of beers and find a place to rock :). Well, that is all for now. Will try to take some pictures.

Walk-walk-walk

Did alot of walking today, both in the city center, and around the dormitory. We ate dinner at the student-house (Menza), it was quite cheap actually, only 25CZK for one meal (about 8 NOK). Sun most of the day, and also quite hot. Will be some table-soccer playing and a couple of beers tonight. Thats it.

Thanx to everyone that are commenting my posts - feel free to say something about how terrible my english is and so on.

Todays czech word: na shledanou - Goodbye
Todays meal: pasta and some meat, quite like the food we get at Tellus in NTNU (Trondheim)
Todays pivo: None yet, but I guess it will be like 2-3 :P

Some pictures of my current room, the kitchen is so small it is impossible to take a picture off :)

First off all, yesterday some people finally arrived. I am sharing room with a nice Finnish guy (Santtu), and there is also an Islandic boy (Thorarinn) sharing the same kitchen. Hope to get to know them better by time.

After breakfast it was time for the language-course. About 40 students divided into 3 groups got one teacher each. We got an old,nice guy that spoke several languages fluently. He thought that at least some of the people (Norwegians,Swedish,Finnish and Islandic) could a bit czech, but he could not have taken more wrong. For the 4 hours we learned the prononce of the czech letters and some words. Afterwards we went to town to buy transport-tickets. It costed only 640CZK(about 210 NOK) for 3 months unlimited transport with bus,tram and metro. I think that the bus in Trondheim need to learn something about the prices :) Of course we found a restaurant to get some food afterwards. Did get some kind of local shot that had a lot of herbs in it (it tasted like Norwegian gingersnap (pepperkake)).

At the afternoon we had a lecture about how to survive in Prague. We was told a story of one time when there was a student that was put in jail for stealing some food. The people at the school bought a bottle of vodka and gave to the police department and then they where released. So the morals is - always keep a bottle of vodka nearby, just in case.

Got a "welcome-dinner" that was like chop with french fries (kotelett med pomm-fri :P) - it was OK, but nothing exceptionally. After a couple of beers we went down to the basement of the dormitory and played some football-game and drank more beers.

I must say that the beer is very good in this country - but it will be hard to get back to Norway and not drink beer to each meal and every day.

Todays czech word: kniha - book, knihy - books
Todays meals: Pizza and something like chop with french fries
Todays pivo: 6x0.5

One "thing" and a butterfly wanted to be my room-mates.

Parking...

Woke up early (8AM) and headed for a breakfast. It is still very hot here and the promised rain haven`t showed up (luckily). Spent the day reading in a park and walking around nearby. Still no people have arrived in my room, but I did get two visitors, will try to upload a picture of them later - but haven`t got it working yet. Also found out there is some firewall-thingy preventing me from using MSN Messenger and voice/video-chat - so if anyone have a great idea how to solve this I would appreciate leaving me a note.

Todays strange things in the park: I have seen a girl and a boy with 2 large bows and alot of arrows, an englishman arguing loudly with his mom why his boyfriend did not like him and why his sister kicked a man in the nuts and finally a drunk old man almost colliding with a bus,car and a tram in a large roundabout with 3 lanes.

Todays Czech word: zàpach - a bad smell
Todays meal: Some mexican thingy with lots of salad and cheese but less meat :(
Todays pivo: 1x0.5l Urquel

Arrival in Prague

Arrived safely (and early) in Prague today. The weather is almost to good to be true, 28 degrees celsius in the sun. It will only last for 2 days according to the local people - but I still enjoy it. Marek was kind enough to escort me away from the local taxi-maniacs and to the right dormitory. Marek seemed friendly, but unfortunately he do not live in Prague for the moment. Hope we can meet again though. After 20 minutes searching for the right papers, the clerk at the Masarykova finally found my name on a list. I will stay at the Masarykova for about one month. The apartment is ok. 2 people sharing 12 square metre bedroom, and 6 people sharing hall/kitchen. Currently I am alone, but I think more people will come on Monday when the language course starts. No livingroom or TV, but luckily I have internet :). Decided to take the Metro to town to look around. Did spend 3 hours walking from Müstek, over the bridge most legii, through the large castle at the top of a long staircase and finally managed to talk to an old man to show me the right direction to Dejvice. The plans for the rest of today is to find a place to eat nearby, drink a few beers and take it easy.

Todays strange thing: Staid in a park for about 20 minutes watching 3 old people selling homemade pictures, one man with no legs and a woman with some toy of a kind. Then all of a sudden everyone starts packing at the same time and rushes away to a nearby bench and hides their stuff. They did probably not have licence for selling stuff on the street. It was funny to watch though :)

Please let me know if you want me to tell about something in particular in my later posts.

Todays meal: Chicken stuffed with ham,pineapple and cheese
Todays alcohol: 3x0.5 Urquell