My Birthday, Hiking, and an Endless Amount of Pretty Pictures.

The last few days I’ve been super busy! This post will mainly be pictures because I just feel like that will be more entertaining. And I really want a nap…

Sunday I went on a USAC sponsored hike in Tisa, near the border of Germany. Only the first fifteen people that signed up were able to go so I felt super lucky that I signed up early. We left at 9am and took a bus through the country side of the Czech Republic. It was really nice to get to see what’s outside of the city. It was beautiful! There were tons of rolling hills and tiny towns. It was a European countryside at its finest. Then all of the sudden we were in the mountains and there was a foot of snow everywhere! The hike was a total of five miles through a bunch of sandstone cliffs. It was really really cool. Figuratively and literally – it was snowing really hard during the hike and it was probably around thirty degrees. I had on multiple layers to say the least! Overall though, the cold wasn’t too bad. The snow was fun and since we were moving so much I stayed warm. I took my gopro and got some really neat screenshots of the scenery. It was seriously like I was in Narnia. Or a snowy heaven. Or any other ice wonderland you can imagine! It was awesome.

Monday after class I walked around the city and toured the National Library, which was amazing!

This is a statue that's been there for quite some years. It's a man hanging with one arm onto a pole above the city streets.

This is the reading room in the library. It's hard to fully appreciate it through a picture but it's stunning. The murals on either ends are amazing, as well as the architecture.

Monday night a bunch of us went to a klub called Roxy. The music wasn’t great but I liked the atmosphere. Since I technically turned 21 at midnight it was pretty fun. People bought me shots and got my birthday off to a great start. What wasn’t great was waking up the next morning and going to class at 9am. Haha. 

The other birthday girl, Madeline.

It was also another girl’s birthday (same year same day and everything) so a bunch of us went to a traditional Czech restraunt for dinner. It was delicious! I had goulash and potato pancakes. And a pivo of course. Beer is literally cheaper than water or cokes here so it’s pointless not to have one with every meal.  

This is the restaurant we went to, Korunni.

After that we went to this really cool bar called The Pub. It’s actually a small chain throughout Europe. Every table has their own beer tap (Pilsner Urquell obviously). There is a touch screen monitor and each person at the table has their own number. You click on your number whenever you want to pour yourself more beer and it keeps up with how many liters each person has had. So not only are you trying to out-drink the people at your table, there is also a giant screen that shows how much beer each table has had in the restaurant. It also shows the top ten tables throughout every Pub in the country, and the top ten Pub’s overall on the continent. There were pubs from Germany, Romania, etc. So my table ended up being first in our pub, fifth in the country, and our pub overall was second on the continent. Needless to say, it was a really cool concept and bar and I will totally be going back. The Pub also had a really American feel so it was kind of refreshing. 

There's my table at the top of the leader board!

My birthday was really good. Huge thanks to all my USAC friends here for making my day so special and going out with me. It’s not easy being half way across the world from everyone you know on your birthday. I haven’t known everyone here very long but it feels like we’ve all already been friends for a month. It’s really weird. Everyone totally made my birthday great though. I wouldn't have wanted to spend it anywhere else but Prague. I'll never forget where I spent my twenty-first. Also, I really have the best roommates. They gave me a card, flowers, and some delicious Czech pastries. Haley also got me a book on Prague to add to my collection! They’re all so sweet and I’m super thankful for them. Thanks to everyone else who wished me Happy Birthday on facebook, text messaging, or etc. My class also sang me Happy Birthday in Czech so that was super cool.

So I had asked my program director, Jan (yawn), if they had Dr. Pepper here and where I could find some. A few days later he brought this to me at school! He's so awesome and nice. And I was super glad to have a taste of something familiar from home.

Well, our Czech language class ends tomorrow and I’m off to Berlin with my roommate Haley this weekend! Na shledanou everyone! (goodbye)