last day in prague :(

i love prague. friday was our last day there. that morning we went to the skoda factory. tons of people here drive skoda cars. until a few months ago i didn't even know what skoda cars were so it was cool to see the factory. we watched this really boring movie about the cars. they showed the changes that have occurred over the years. from bikes to modern cars. we also walked around the museum a little and saw different models.

then we went to the factory. it was insane! there were cars just travelling down the path and tons of peolpe around them moving so fast to put the pieces together. i felt kinda awkward because we were just staring at the people while they did their jobs. czech people are funny. i've seen a lot of rat tails and mullets, so weird.

then we had lunch at the skoda welcome center. there was this whole chicken-beef controversy. it was really funny. i got the chicken so i was happy :)

then we took the bus back to the hotel. i went shopping with cara and jocelyn and bought this really nice blazer. i had to rush back to the hotel because i had to get ready for the orchestra! the fields', cara, christina, teri, dan and i all went to the prague royal orchestra. it was SO nice. seriously the building was just gorgeous and the music was so amazing. i could have sat there forever just in peace listening to the music. totally worth the $35.

i'm going to miss prague :(

today we went to the crystal factory! it was really cool. they reach into these big things with sicks and pull out blazing hot crystal. then they blow air into the tubes to stretch it out, squeeze it into molds, etc. the women can use the molds and carry it into the coolers but only men are allowed to do the blowing part and they all smoke and drink the whole time. supposedly beer keeps you hydrated, ha. also, its crazy hot in there so they were all shirtless! apparently in the summer it can be like 130 degrees in there, totally insane. next the crystal goes into a room where lines are drawn to set up the pattern. next the pieces go into this room where the designs are carved in. there were tons of peolpe in lines with crazy wheel things carving away. our tour guide said that the dust is 24% lead! no one was wearing gloves or even a mask... she said they werent required to and it was their choice. its so unsafe, just nuts.

after shopping in the crystal factory, we headed back to prague. i got lunch at Fridays. BAD CALL. i got a freaking burger and it was $20. oh well. then cara and i went shopping at this place called vera moda and i got really good deals. that pretty much made my day.

we had to rush back to get to a lecture at CERGE. it is some sort of universitz. the girl gave us a good lecture about the czech republic and their economic conditions. it was a good match with the lecture from the morning about investments in the czech republic. its crazy how much the history ties into business and the economy. the building was insane too- it looked like a classroom from harry potter. a lot of movies have been filmed there- one of the bourne movies i think.

that night some peolpe went to the black light theater but i passed and i heard that was a good call so that made me happy. we ended up going back to the pizza colloseum and i even got the same thing, so good.

that night i went back to the beer factory with some people. it was nice to just chill and relax.

very good day.

today we went to czech invest. the lecture was prety interesting. the most entertaining part of it was how all of the bozs were drooling over the woman who gave hte lecture. personallz i didnt think she was that attractive but whatev. they were seriouslz flirting and saying ridiculous stuff, so funny. luckily her lecture was only about 45 minutes long and then we had a free day!

i came back to the hotel, changed out of the "bus cas", sprayed my boots to waterproof them (it was raining) and then headed out with some peolpe. we walked and got lunch at this little vendor- square pizza, pretty yummy. basically we just wandered around the city, walked over the charles bridge, saw a guy playing a one man band thing. oh and we went to the lenin wall. it was so funny. only because it was prety dissapointing. basically its just a wall with grafiti. im not sure what i thought it would be, but more than that. it was fun though, took some pictures, etc.

kathleen and i went to an internet cafe and then i took a nap. poor kathleen wasnt feeling well so we just relaxed for a bit. for dinner ew went to this place called the pizzy colloseum. SO GOOD. basically just normal italian food. i had this really good vodka fettucine with chicken and cara and i split awesome bruschetta. seriously it was a little pricey, but totally worth it to have good food.

that night i just relaxed with everyone until midnight and then crashed. i cant handle not going to bed at a decent hour every night.

long day.

first of all, i apologize in advance because the y and z are backwards on this kezboard. see? ugh. i´m trying.

Today is Tuesday. After getting up crazy early, we loaded the bus to Black and Decker. Mrs. Fields had a student a while back who works for black and decker in maryland, so he and another colleague, came to Prague to show us around! i think they were doing other things too, but they planned it to meet up with us so it was fun. very nice having peolpe who spoke perfect english and who could give us an american approach too.

ralph and the other guy whose name i cant remember rode the bus with us to Usti. the plant was in Usti- a little town about an hour out of prague. after arriving at the plant, ian, the plant manager talked to us about his plant. im pretty much in love with ian. hes from scotland and has an amazing accent. he moved to usti to run the plant and he does a sweet job- the usti plant is pretty much the most successful b & d plant out there. anyway, his lecture was really good. hes a great operations guy so it was helpful for me to hear it. i left the room thinking hmmm maybe i could do this with my life. but THEN we went on the tour. it was just so boring. slightly interesting because it applied to things i had learned in class, but overall i just dont care about screwdrivers and hammers. the tour was kinda cool though. darren got to use this massive hammer to put a hole in concrete so that was funny.

after that we had lunch at b & d. it was very overwhelming and very czech. eventually this guy told us how to say french fries and then life was good. after lunch we went back upstairs to listen to ralph and the other guy tell us about b & d and basically try to convince us to work for them. it sounds like a good company but you have to be willing to move a lot and i donät think im down with that.

after a long bus ride back, i crashed. the black and decker guys wanted to take us all out for a drink so we went to this place called the beer factory. it was cool- they had taps right on the table and it kept track of how much beer you poured and then just charged for however much it was. kinda cool. some of us decided to just stay for dinner- bad idea. i got the fajitas. or "fah ji tas" as the waiter said it. they were gross and expensive and i was sad. oh well.

we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a while and then went back to the beer factory that night. good times all around.

hello prague.

so today was our first full day in prague! we had a tour of the city this morning. our tour guide tatiana, split us up so my group went with some other lady who was funny too. we started out taking the streetcar up to this castle. it was really pretty. there was still lots of snow on the ground so it was so pretty. we also saw this awesome church. there were tons of tours going on and people everywhere. at this point it started raining and was so nasty and cold and miserable again. at least this time i remembered my umbrella so that was nice.

out in front of the castle were guards in these little dog house things (kinda like you would think in london) so we took some fun pictures with them. we also saw the changing of the guard. all of a sudden all this crazy music started playing and soldiers started marching down the road. they did all of these crazy maneuvers and switched up lines. at this point it was so nasty and cold out that we stopped into this little cafe and got the best hot chocolate ever. seriously so yummy, and pretty cheap too.

we kept going on our tour. we had to walk down all these crazy ice covered steps. poor aubrey fell and got all wet. we walked around old town by all the shops and stuff. it was really cute. there was a nice road with tons of really nice shops like dolce & gabana. too bad i'm too poor to shop there.

after the tour i came back and crashed and then showered and we went on a dinner cruise. it was sweet- we had the whole boat to ourselves. we got dressed up and ate dinner while we cruised down the river. the food was pretty gross- it was all salty and just nasty. but it was nice to just hang out and relax. we could go on top of the boat and see the city all lit up, except that it was insanely cold. every so often the boat would stop in the locks so they could raise the water level so that was kinda cool.


oh and last night was really fun. everyone went to this cute place called double trouble and it was so much fun. i like hanging out with everyone, hopefully that will continue for the whole trip but we'll see.

"its really good. you should try it"

so last night we went to champion sports bar to watch football! pretty much everyone went and it was cool to see american TV and relax. the redskins lost, everyone was sad and i bet my dad was sad too.

today we got up crazy early and got on a bus to prague! i felt like we were only in frankfurt for such a short time but its exciting to be in a new city! driving into prague, i didn't like it at all. it seemed so dreary and gross. there was snow on the ground though! it must have just snowed yesterday because little kids were out sledding around.

after arriving, we checked into our hotel- Hotel Meran. DEFINITELY a step down from the hessischer hof. our room is SO small. i miss the 5 star bathrobes and warm towels. oh well. i'm not planning on spending a ton of time in the room. tonight we all went to dinner at Marie Teresie. our dinner was SO funny. we had a 500 korona limit so we all ordered tons of food. i split garlic toast and potato pancakes with derek for an apetizer- BAD IDEA. the garlic toast was like coated in garlic stuff and the potato pancakes were seriously like NOT potatoes. our table laughed so hard. aubrey and i were laughing so hard that we were seriously crying. everyone had to try the yummy ham filled pancakes. SO SO gross. oh well :)

alright time to go shower and try to unpack my little midget room...