02/10/2016

Yesterday we spent the day walking around and exploring Prague! Taylor, Margaret, and I went to the school to sign up for the Nation to Nations events, which are organized events every Tuesday at clubs, and we get in for a discount since we bought the membership. After we did that, we walked around with a big group of my friends and went searching for the John Lennon wall. We bought lime green spray paint (Sam’s favorite color) before hand in order to write on the wall ourselves.

It took us a good hour or so to find the wall because it is very hidden in the city. It started raining on us while walking around, so that was cold, but it was a fun adventure! We all spray-painted on the wall and took pictures. It made me sad because there was a ton of really cool artwork on the wall that people wrote nasty things over, which kind of ruined parts of it for us. Even though that was kind of disappointing, the wall is so beautiful and bright! It was nice to see on a rainy day since it was shining through because it is so festive!

After the wall, our big group split up, and my smaller group went out for Spanish food. We ordered nachos with guacamole as an appetizer, but it came without cheese, and we all thought that was funny! Almost the entire table ordered chicken tacos, and they were small but so delicious! It was nice eating food that was not Czech food because Czech food is so filling and heavy – it makes you want to take a lifetime-long nap at the end of every meal! I also got hot chocolate, and although it was amazing, it was like drinking melted chocolate chips. It was very thick and creamy! SO YUMMY THOUGH 🙂

After the food, we walked back to the tram station and went home for dinner, naps, and to just hang out! We walked about 17,000 steps and over seven miles! It was so fun exploring the city.

When I got home, I was reunited with my roommates, Taylor and Margaret, and we all went on our first grocery shopping trip. OH MY GOSH. Finding gluten-free food was hard because reading food labels in Czech takes me so long, but I managed to find noodles and some other snacks! It took us about an hour to find the ingredients to make pasta, and we could not figure out half of the cheeses we were looking at.

After we got home and made dinner, we were invited to go out to a French girl’s apartment (who we did not know)… we decided to go because our French guy friends who were going to go with us are very fun! We all took the tram to the apartment (carrying all of our alcohol out in the open while walking there, which feels so strange to do) and had the best time! We went with three guys that we know from the dorms and ended up making so many friends! There were about 10 French students in total, and we all bonded and had such a great time playing drinking games and talking! It was fun to hear them go in and out of speaking French and English. They also kept teaching me words in French!

We spent about four hours drinking and talking at their apartment, and then we went to the club for the Nations to Nations party (that’s when all the exchange students are invited to a club that is rented out just for us). It was one of the nicest clubs in the city and was on a rooftop. We had so much fun! We stayed out until 5 am dancing! They played all American music, which was refreshing since everything I hear here is hard to understand.

I had a night I will never forget here since it was my first time at a European club and with so many international students. I have to say that so far, every French person I have met has been nothing but nice to me! They are all so friendly, fun, and kind. Felix and Francois made sure that nobody in our group went home alone and that we were all safe the entire time, even though we were all in different parts of the club a lot of the night! The girls were so nice to us as well!

Overall, I would have to say that the nightlife here is very VERY fun and that sleep is going to be an issue, I can already tell! Who cares about sleep, though, right? You only get to study abroad once!

I hope everyone is doing well back at home 🙂