Kutna Hora and Easter

Happy Easter everyone! In the Czech Republic, Easter is celebrated on the Monday of the holiday more so than the Sunday when the church services are held. We woke up to a crowd of hundreds at the cathedral outside of our bedroom window and saw the priest blessing everyone with holy water. I'm getting ahead of myself!

On Saturday we left on the train for an hour ride to Kutna Hora, a cute little town in the countryside. There was an enormous fair going on and some of us nearly had mental breakdowns due to the mental overload but once we got through the crowds we were able to visit the Bone Church and St. Barbara's Cathedral. The Bone Church was amazing: years ago, the church had to deal with the fact that they had 40,000 bodies that were too much for the cemetaries so they decided to create decorations and structures out of the bones in the church. It was a cool experience to sit in the cold cement dungeon like church and see the beautiful way they arranged the bones and how creative they must have been.

After that church, we walked for an hour about to the opposite side of the city where we got a delicious meal and were refreshed to continue on to find St. Barbara's Cathedral. After another hour or so of walking in circles we found it and it was so worth it. What a beautiful church, completely unlike anything else I had ever seen.

A gelato and coffee later, we were back on the train and to Prague where we stayed in and caught up on some sleep.

The view from the church was amazing! We could see the whole town and the countryside.

On Easter Sunday, several of us went out to breakfast and then to the Lennon Wall (see previous blog posts if you don't know what this is) to make our own mark. I brought down my laptop and blasted the Beatles the whole time, I'm pretty sure we got through 5 albums, and we just sat on the sidewalk drawing and making potato prints and then gluing our stuff up onto the wall with spray glue. So many people stopped and took pictures or talked to us, it was a great way to meet people. After two or three hours of that we looked back at the images we had posted and people had already signed them and added their own quotes to them which was pretty awesome to see.

That night, we had a potluck dinner and each room brought a dish. We brought pesto pasta and we are happy to have tons of leftovers in our fridge today!

I am doing great and the work is hard but joyful so I am getting a lot out of this experience. I'm learning to push myself and look at things differently which is a great new approach to art and writing for me. I'll include more of my work soon once I get some stuff finished!

The Lennon Wall at Night

Tonight Ally and Lauren and I decided it would be fun to walk down to the Lennon Wall from our hostel, just 10 minutes away at most. Starting in '88, Prague students began to write grievances and words of rebellion against the communist Russian rule on the wall. Since then, the wall has continued to be painted on, mostly with lyrics from the Beatles and encouraging notes of Peace and Love. I tried to take as many pictures as possible but had to use a flash since it was 10:30 p.m. when we got there. I can't wait for Sunday when I will be going down there on my own to make a mark and look more closely at the messages there in person.

Getting Comfortable in Prague

It is hard to believe but a week and a half has already gone by and we have done so much. We enjoyed the Prague Writers' Festival this week, getting to hear readings from writers like Don Delillo and Junot Diaz. Diaz was by far one of the most inspirational speakers I have ever heard, we got to meet him personally and he signed my journal. He was so down to earth and radical which I loved, it made me think that there is still hope for people with beliefs like Kurtis and I!

We have spent a lot of time in the studios this week. So far we created a 4 foot square mixed media drawing/painting based on Jaroslav Seifert's poem shirt and now we are in the process of doing one on our own based off of our own work. The project we are currently in the middle of is inspired by Franz Kafka's story "Metamorphosis" and we are all painting a collaged image of bugs and autobiographical information mixed together.

We went on a 4 hour walking architectural tour on Tuesday with our local architect tour guide, Kristof. It was a great way to see the city and he pointed out all the best gelato spots and pubs on the way.

I have had a surprising amount of time to myself to explore the city, considering how busy they are keeping us and how much work we are doing. I have been drawing everywhere I go, my little moleskine is filling up quickly!

Yesterday I walked around the city for four hours going to the market drawn above to buy gelato, strawberries, and zucchini and then I saw the Bridge Band that I drew below.

As I was drawing them the main old man of the band kept singing to me and laughing and even pointing! They were such characters and after I was done drawing and they finished their song they called me over and asked where I was from and asked to look at my drawing. They all laughed and pointed at each other in my drawing, I think they approved.
Here is one of the bakery stands that you can find in the main squares. They are full of freshly baked goods, some that they even bake there as you can see by the brick oven in the background.
Here is Old Town Square with all of the Easter vendors out selling their trinkets. This was a picture from our architectural tour and we got treats here as we walked through to refuel.
Lastly, the four senior girl roommates before we went out dancing in a way too busy club with way too many grabby Italians. I may never go to Italy after that! (we still had fun though)

Journal Entries

Here are a few entries so far. If you don't already know, I have a daily assignment of writing descriptively and drawing everyday.

Wandering Day of Cafés

Today Ally and I went walking for an hour at 7:30 this morning exploring the city and the enormous park above our hostel near the castle. There were very few people out and the light was great and thanks to the weather gods, we had blue skies all day! As a group, we went to the National Art Gallery where we looked around for 2 and a half hours. A friend of a friend of Dinah's is an art historian in Prague and she toured us around and told us all about the artists and works we were seeing. A lot of what we saw was abstract but there were also a few Picassos, Renoirs, and Matisses. It was an amazing collection of Czech art and it has made me appreciate abstract art so much.

After that, I went off on my own for the day. I heard about a reading in Café Louvre from our professor so I jumped on the metro and after walking for an hour found the place. It was very modern but cozy and I got to hear the opening reading for the Prague Writers' Festival. Instead of listening I sketched the audience most of the time though and enjoyed an espresso with lots and lots of milk.

After that I went to our art studio that we are renting out and worked on a piece for an hour and a half before heading back to the hostel. Here I am working hard as you can see. It get's pretty messy with charcoal, ink, gesso, and pastels.
I met up with Ally there and we decided to wander around the city looking for dinner. We found a great little place and had salad and soup with a bread bowl. We went from there to a rowdy pub which we walked in and right out of. We'll go back when we have more people or more time. Here we are at dinner, which we got to eat on a patio outside.
Instead we kept walking and found Choco Café which was a specialized chocolate and dessert café that was delicious. See the pictures of my dessert below and get jealous! Now we are going out to go dancing at a five story club with themed floors. It will be great to go out with the girls especially considering how bent over my journal drawing and writing I have been lately.

At Home in Prague

We finally got to go grocery shopping today after a couple days of eating out for every meal and now we are fully equipped to cook for ourselves. As confusing as the Czech grocery store was, I got up the nerves to order meat and cheese from the deli by saying "deset" (ten) of everything and pointing and then thanking them several times.

Here is a picture of our first roommate dinner: we had pesto pasta, bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and sautéed tomatoes and broccoli in garlic.

Last night we went out as roommates to Old Town Square to do our daily writing and drawing assignment which turned into a trip to get gelato which was delicious. We are getting the metro and tram routes down too which makes it easier to get to where we want to go. We have no curfew which is such a great feeling: not that I am a big partier at all but that we can have the freedom to be out if we want even if we are just doing homework.
Today we went to Lobkowicz Castle to explore the amazing paintings, weapons collection, porcelain, eat an amazing 4 course meal and listen to a concert. After making a tour of the castle, during which we saw the living heir to the Lobkowicz Castle, we went to lunch out on a terrace where we had hot soup, salad, goulash with bread and cheesecake, complete with blankets to keep us warm since it didn't get over 45 today. After lunch we went to a concert in a little room of the castle that had a variety of different composers and pieces played by a pianist, violinist, and flutist. It was absolutely beautiful and a great chance to sit back and relax. This is a picture of Trevor and I at lunch enjoying our delicious coffee and soup to start with.
Here is just a part of the view from the castle we walked up to today. The walk was only about 15 minutes and from the top we had a 180 degree view of Prague that was breathtaking.
Here is St Vitus Cathedral, the cathedral and the castle. Amazing.

We're Here!

After over 24 hours we are in our hostel and comfy cosy. I could never have created this city in my wildest imagination, it is so magical. There are orange tiled roofs, statues of patron saints on the sides of buildings, and old fashioned lamp posts lining the streets. Lucky for us we will be staying in this hostel for a whole 5 weeks. This means we get to be settled and feel at home which is such a blessing for this abroad.

Our hostel is amazing, we have our own kitchen and two separate double rooms with beautiful windows framing our view

Here is the beautiful view of the square from our window. The buildings are so stereotypically european I love it. The people have been amazing as well. We had our first dinner in Prague tonight consisting of beef and dumplings covered in a delicious gravy and cranberry sauce followed by apple strudel. Yum.
This picture was taken after 18 hours of travel right before our final leg of the journey. Jake is in the middle and Ally is on the right. As you can see we were ecstatic.
Here are Trevor and Daniel in the London Heathrow airport, we were excited about everything at this point including giant stuffed bears.
And finally, this picture was the first of my whole trip. The funniest little boy I have ever seen playing in the St Louis airport with his Star Wars figurines.

Last Class at Principia College...Ever

Today we finished up our week of studio art bootcamp and I am more excited than ever to get going on this trip. We did a group drawing today by dividing an image into a grid and completing squares independently and then putting it back together to form a 6 foot tall image of Franz Kafka. Pretty awesome.

Everyday we have an assignment for both drawing and writing and we keep it all in our fancy looking moleskine journals. For art we have to draw something, anything, as realistically as possible. So far I have drawn several scenes of people, a tree and some birds, and a page full of feet. The same idea goes for writing for which we describe something everyday. Our professor constantly emphasize process and the importance of daily practice when it comes to both disciplines, something that I am just getting used to. I never thought of art as something you had to practice until last quarter when I realized that it really comes down to practice, practice, practice. I am excited to see the progression of drawings throughout the abroad and I will be sure to include them in this blog.

Here are a few of the drawings from my journal this past week:

We got quite the surprise today when our abroad leaders let us know that the activities for tomorrow are canceled to give us some time to relax and prepare for the trip. I will be spending the day taking a trip to Target with friends, laying out on the chapel green, possibly playing some sand volleyball or ultimate frisbee and taking a long relaxing walk to who knows where.

More good news, I turned in my senior capstone, a 27 page paper in French which secures my graduation and completes my major. I hadn't realized how much pressure I felt from that one paper considering how many I have written over the past four years but now that it is out of my hands, literally, I am happy to say goodbye to it.

The next time I write may be when I am in the Little Town Budget Hotel in Praha eating dumplings and fresh strawberries from the fruit market and sipping on some genuine Czech kava (coffee). So until then, Na schledanou!

4 Days and Counting

As I embark on this new journey for the next 8 weeks of my life, I invite you all to follow my adventures through this blog. I will try my best to post as often as possible but from what I have seen from our schedules so far we will be out and about doing fun and exciting things so posts may be intermittent.

For the past week and a half I have been on Principia campus doing creative writing and studio art bootcamp in preparation for our intensive study abroad. My journal is filling up quickly with stories and creative writing exercises and my hands are now stained with charcoal.

I can't wait to share my travel stories with you all, I hope you enjoy!