Catching up on last week...

This past weekend I stayed in Prague because I wanted to study for my Czech midterm. Molly and Kiefer had a friend in town so we did some touristy stuff, like going to Pivovarský Dům, a restaurant known for its flavored beers on tap. We tried the sour cherry beer, coffee beer, banana beer, nettle beer, and beer champagne. I thought it was all pretty gross except for the champagne beer which tasted more like a regular light beer. We also went to a club near St. Charles bridge that is five stories high with a different kind of music on each floor. Lots of people from our program came but it was mostly filled with European tourists. On Sunday we went to The Globe to study, its a book store and English coffee shop/restaurant that kind of serves as the heart of the English speaking expatriot community. It hosts events like watching the Presidential Debates at 3 am.

On Monday I have a full day of classes, one is called "Life in a Totalitarian Regime." Last week we learned about the influence of Jazz on dissidence under communism. It's interesting to learn about the relationship between my two cities-New Orleans and Prague-when there doesn't seem to be a strong connection. Music was a huge part of both promoting party ideology and protest. Yesterday we heard a version of "Say a Little Prayer for You" in Czech but with changed lyrics that was approved pop music.

On Monday night I went to a Sukkot dinner with my friend Ari at the Jerusalem Street synagogue. It is one of the few synagogues in New Town, closer to where I live. It is really beautiful and very unique from the other synagogues in that it was built relatively recently, around the turn of the century, and is done in an art nouveau/Moorish style. Now it is a conservative synagogue. After a short service we all ate dinner in the Sukkah. I was surprised at the amount of people who came, I guess about fifty altogether and there were several students there. The congregation members were all very friendly and interested in where we were from. Afterwards I got coffee with a couple girls who were there who I met earlier during high holidays.

On Tuesday in my walking tour class, we walked thr0ugh St. Charles Bridge and learned about the different statues. Many of them are of Saints and a lot have anti-Semitic and anti-Turk imagery in them. After that we walked to St. Nicholas's church. It is extremely heavily and ornamented and basically completely pink and gold on the inside. Afterwards, we made our way further out toward Prague Castle and saw the Senate building and we couldn't go inside, but the gardens were really beautiful with fountains, coy ponds and lots of flowers and greenery.

Also, I got my computer back today from the repair shop. Yay!

I got back from Amsterdam on Sunday, but I have far too much to write about to include it in this post and I have a lot to do. I'm currently choosing my courses for next year and I have a presentation for my living history class due tomorrow. Cau!