Ah, internet! I'm actually sitting in the middle of a shopping mall in Andel, just down the street from my apartment. The wifi that we were "borrowing" in our flat officially went down the other day, so my flatmates and I have been visiting various internet cafes and internet bars (yes, beer and wifi) over the past few days. Perhaps this is good for my compulsive email checking habit though! Anyway, that's why I haven't been posting much, but hopefully I'll be able to better keep up now.

So, orientation is finally over and I'm halfway through our two week intensive Czech course. Orientation was this crazy five day affair where we'd have classes like "Dealing with Bureaucracy," "Minorities in the Czech Republic," and so on, and go on scavenger hunt-like activities. Except we would be be in all of these scheduled activities from 8:30 or 9:00 and not get back to our apartment until 17:00. Most of us were exhausted all the time and wanted to wander around Prague on our own, instead of schlepped from one tour to the next.

It's probably better that I didn't have a chance to update last week - honestly, I was tired, homesick, and miserable. I would get back to my flat and collapse, all I could think about was how unhappy I was and how much I wanted to go home. And this from the girl who couldn't stop talking about leaving for Europe all summer! I think it was a combination of sleep deprivation, a "bad" housing situation, and generally eating terribly.

At first, I hated living in my flat. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice apartment in a nice area, and I appreciate it now. But it's much, much different than living in a dorm. My flat is really far away from the others in my program, and it was really hard to make plans with other students at first. It was terribly isolating in the beginning, but now that I'm getting used to putting in more effort to call people and so on (as opposed to knocking on my floormates' doors), things have gotten a lot better. And also, catching up on sleep definitely gave a rosier tint on every situation I've encountered in the past few days. I feel tons better now, no worries, but I feel like no one ever mentions the difficulties of adjusting to studying abroad at first, and just how important a good night of sleep is!

So yeah, since Monday, I've been struggling with the Czech language (SOOO HARD!), but commiserating with everyone else in my class. My Czech teacher is really funny and easy going, despite the fact that few of us can pronounce even two syllable words. We're usually in class for about 4 hours a day, but today we cut off the last hour and our teacher sent us to practice our "shopping vocab" by taking us to a neighborhood in Prague 10 where few people spoke English. We then had to track down a marketplace, a butcher shop, and ask for the prices of different items. I was successfully able to ask two women for directions to the marketplace, but the cashier had no idea what I was saying when I tried asking if the pastry I was pointing at was apple (apple is jblkno, 'j' sounds like a 'y' and where'd all the vowels go?). However, it's really exciting to be able to recognize words in conversation on the trams and on signs now that we've been in class for a few days.

Before dinner, me and my two American flatmates, Julie and Maya, went to explore the park next to our street. Not even kidding, it's like Central Park but cooler. I took pictures, but I haven't loaded them onto my computer yet. Perhaps tomorrow? Anyway, I went to the park yesterday when I went for a run, and was completely surprised at how big it was and that it's more or less a steep, steep mountain. There's a gorgeous view of the entire city from the top, not to mention that the Eiffel Tower of Prague (yeah, that's right) is about one block from the park fence. And a labrinyth maze. And an observatory. And a mountain tram-thing. And giant gardens. Seriously, coolest area ever, and right next to our street. More exploring on this later.

We went back to our flat around 18:00 for dinner, because our Czech flatmate, Helena decided to make this Friday her cooking night. She made this delicious pasta pizza with vegetables (which I actually ate) and some salad. We sat around and talked about Czech food for a while, and learned that the fatty, carb-intensive, "traditional Czech meals" that we'd been eating in restaurants all week are actually not too common in real Czech houses. Apparently they take a long time to cook and, of course, are really unhealthy. Despite this, I am in love with bread dumplings.

I could write an entire entry on Czech food and my Tesco (giant supermarket chain) shopping experiences, and I probably will later. Within a 30 second walk from our flat, there's also a portaviny (small, usually Vietnamese-run grocery store) that sells cheap wine and delicious looking ice cream, a pub, and Karvarna Cirkus, a cafe/breakfast place that I want to try this weekend.

Otherwise, I think I should probably head back to my flat soon. I was out late-ish at some other students' flat last night, and ended up walking halfway across Prague at 1:30 because I took the wrong night tram. Tomorrow we've got a trip planned to a castle at 8:30 (through CIEE, my program) and Sunday is our first day off, yay! Pictures soon, I promise.