I'm not dead yet!

Hi all! Sorry for the long delay, but I've been keeping very busy here in the cosmopolitan cobblestone that is Prague.

First Item of Great and Fabulous Importance: I have a cell phone! It costs me nothing to receive phone calls, but quite a bit to call out. If you are interested in talking to me in person, check with my parents, and they'll pass the number onto you.

So, where I did I leave you all hanging? I believe that I had told you that we were going out to the pub on Thursday night, but that's as far as I got. Well, we went out. It's quite a lot of fun, because everyone comes: tutors (my teachers), teachers (us), students (our Czech students), former teachers, former students.... everyone! And everyone is happy, and very ... "relaxed." It ended up being a VERY late night though.

Fortunately our tutors know that, and so class doesn't begin until noon on Friday. It was very hard to get through class awake! :) Then Megan and I stayed late to finish all of our homework before the weekend got started. This had been what all of our flatmates agreed to do, so that we could all go touring together this weekend. Megan and I are the diligent ones in our group... turns out no one else bothered to get everything done, and had to spend the whole weekend doing homework. *sigh* So much for touring as a group!

Friday night, we went out again. I love how close our class is. Everyone gets along, and we all enjoy spending time together. It's hard to be lonely with 11 built in friends. I spent a large part of the evening joking around with Sydney, an older man who is originally from El Salvador. For those of you who have been to Camp May-Mac... he has a personality just like Sal! It was so much fun. We started out in a pub, but then moved on to a dance club, where it was "80s and 90s" night. Wow! They had a huge movie screen, and we rocked out to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Ra Ra Rasputin, I Will Survive... with all the music videos! It was great! The only downer is that the club is underground, and no air moves through it.... everyone was sweating like cheese on the countertop. We stayed and partied until 3 in the morning... so much fun!!

Saturday was brilliant. I stayed in bed, and read a really good book that Megan loaned me. We did some grocery shopping, made some lunch, had an early night. It was perfect. Everyone else was frantically doing homework, so it was nice to be all caught up. I enjoy feeling slightly superior *wink*.

Sunday morning, Megan and I really wanted to wander around, but no one else had finished their work and could come with us. We headed into the downtown anyways. First, we toured the Jewish quarter. We saw 5 synagogues, 1 cemetery, and the ceremonial hall. This tour was incredible, but very sad. One of the synagogues has all of the names of the Czech Jewish victims painted on the walls. There are so many of them. The script is very small, and the walls are covered corner to corner. A poignant reminder of how terrible those times were.

Another synagogue has all the walls and the ceiling painted in a very intricate design. At first I thought that it was wall paper, until I looked closer. It's amazing, and I can't imagine doing that much work to paint that kind space with such an amazing design.

I could go on and on about these places, but really, you should come see them yourselves. I'll leave you with just one last description. Since the Jewish Quarter (read: ghetto) was so small, they had only 1 square block for a cemetery. They filled the cemetery. They pulled up all of the headstones, laid on a layer of dirt, and put up the first headstones, plus a second round for the new bodies. They did this 10 or 12 times. Now the cemetery is just completely crammed with headstones. It almost looks like a mouth full of a lot of crooked teeth. Mum, the rabbi who invented the golem (I hope that's the right word) is buried here! I almost bought you a little figurine, but decided I'd wait and see if I got your name for Christmas.

After that, we went wandering. Amber, amber is very valued here, and they make beautiful jewellery with it. I bought you a ring! Megan and I did a bit more shopping (I bought a ring and a bracelet; jewellery is very affordable here). Then we wandered smack into a medieval festival! Everyone was in costume; even the horses! There was dancing and acting, and a horse parade. It was incredible. They had all kinds of armor and swords for kids. I almost bought Jake a mace, or a helmet, or a sword... but I couldn't figure out how I'd get it home. Maybe for Christmas.... :) (don't know why, but I've got Christmas on my mind).

As we walked away from the medieval festival, we ran into a folk festival! We watched some really cute kids dance traditional dances in the most beautiful costumes. One of the women was playing an instrument that I've never seen before. It was held under one arm like a bagpipe, squeezed under the other like an accordion, and was played with what looked like a recorder out of the front. The sound came out of two cow horns... one in front, and one behind. I have no idea how else to explain this thing... it was just bizarre!

After that, Megan and I went home, and regaled the others with our tales. They were very jealous, because they had spent all day Sunday doing homework as well. I'm going to continue doing 10 hr days, because it means my weekends are free!

Today, I taught my second lesson. I thought it went terribly... it was like Elizabeth and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Lesson. According to my group members, it wasn't that bad! I think I'm quite good at this teaching thing... I just need to be more convinced of that when I'm actually doing it, yeah? I'll try to remember that tomorrow, when I'm up in front of the group again!

This has been an awfully long update, my apologies. It seems like I won't be doing much updating on the weekends, though, so I had to fill you in.

I love you all, please keep writing (or phone!)

Love,
Elizabeth