Czech DJ Out!: Wait...I Live in Prague?

It is really so hard to believe that I have actually moved into my apartment in Prague and I will be living here for the next three months. Time has flown in a complete whirlwind for the past two weeks. But, even though in some ways it feels like I stepped off of the plane wide eyed (well...as wide as jet lagged eyes can be) just yesterday, in other ways I feel like I have been here for months.

A view of Prague from Pražský hrad ("Prague Castle"

Playing the "Haha Game"Dani introduced to us in Letna Park

The city, for one, is even more beautiful than the pictures make it seem. There are parts of the city like Old Town Square and the Jewish Quarter that, despite the large number of tourists, seem to take you back hundreds of years. And there are other parts of town that have all the perks and characteristics of the most modern of cities. My neighborhood, Letna/Holešovice is just across the Vlatava River from the popular tourist sites and sits between two of the largest parks in Prague, Letna (which means "summer" in Czech) Park and Stromovka Park. Although the weather has been less than perfect, I'm sure I will be enjoying the luxury of living by these places while it is still relatively warm outside. Last weekend, I spent some time exploring Letna Park shortly after moving from the hotel I was staying in to my apartment. The park is really cool and has some sweet views of the city (since it's across the Vlatava) from "the metronome," and a beer garden.

The Metronome is an area in the park where a statue of Lenin used to be during the reign of USSR. After it's fall, the statue was replaced with this metronome. The area is now popular with young people hanging out and skating.

Chelsea, Grace, Dani, Grant, Postman, and I taking some typical tourist selfies at the metronome

We started intensive Czech this past week and I will be starting my regular class schedule tomorrow. It was nice to have the first two weeks to settle in and explore (we also visited another town, which I will talk about in my next blog post). And while I would usually dread the start of classes, I am actually really looking forward to this semester's course load. I am taking Elementary Czech Language, European Integration (a political science course about the European Union), Comprehending the Holocaust, The Rise and Fall of Communism in Central Europe, and Prague as a Living History (a class which is pretty much a walking tour of the city). They all are very pertinent to the city that I live in and it will be awesome to be able to understand some more of the story behind Prague.