Learning to stay through til the end of the credits...

the day has finally come--- i leave prague in the morning.
i should be home around 10pm tomorrow night.


it has been incredible and there is no point in even trying to explain the last two weeks.

i can't wait to see you all!!!

i will be replaying my last stroll across the charles bridge in my head over and over again until i get to hug you!

see you soon <3

the final stretch

Why hellllllllllo there blog reader! And hello to you too, December!

Let me start with this point and then jump to the updates on my life, please bare with me here.

I’ve been updating less and less because I’m not even sure who is still keeping up with this… as the semester winds down I find myself somewhat in shock how removed my relationships with all of you back home have been and how little communication we have had. Of course I knew it would be limited, but I figured skype, email and facebook would have aided much more in keeping me updated in your lives. Its been quite strange only talking with very few of you on an inconsistent basis and I find the thought of actually seeing you very soon ( AHHH YAYAA!) to be an almost scary and overwhelming thought. Some of you have been an absolutely wonderful support system with sending mail, calling etc. and I understand that we are all very very busy people, it is just a strange realization for me. I hope that you bear with me and have a little sympathy for my exhausted mind and heart as I return into the far away land of America.


Alright, now that that is out of the way here are the updates:
- Tammy and Mimi were here for their visit and we traveled to Cesky Krumlov (x2 for me), and the wonderful city of Vienna where we saw the two palaces of the Hapsburgs, the amazing christmas market anddd the oldest zoo in the world filled with baby pandas, baby polar bears AND a baby giraffe. It was pretty much the best thing ever.

- Our last two class trips will be this week, one to Pilsen to the beer factory responsible for created the first ever pilsner beer (I’m getting a really good education over here), and then one to Dresden for a brief history lesson and a chance to see the oldest Christmas market in Germany.

- SAVE KNUT!!! http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2008/12/03/barton.germany.bear.sale.itn?iref=videosearch

- i saw cold war kids play a show here at lucerna a few weeks ago and it was freaking INCREDIBLE!

-The countdown is really on! In less than two weeks I will be leaving Prague! I’ve got tonssssssssss of school work to do and lots of things I need to soak in before I leave, but I feel pretty good about coming home.

- I arrive late on December 18th and will most likely be in a coma until Christmas…But I can’t wait to hug the crap out of you all, and I never meant that more in my life! (If I knew how to express an even higher level of desire to embrace people I would say it here…)


This last month has been really great and I think all that I have learned here is slowly starting to work it’s way from my heart into my mind.
I would like to think that my traveling and ideas of what it means to travel has greatly improved--- and this growth has bled over, becoming the perfect subscription to my constant tunnel vision.
It seemed that the less and less I used maps and directions the more and more my mind allowed me to see what was right in front of me.

I’m not saying that I’m not still highly concerned with the future but I can feel a change in myself of learning to live more and more in the present. Prior to this trip ‘the present’ was more of a theory than a fact of life to me, not in the gravity sort of way because I can feel that… more like actually wrapping my mind around every detail of the big bang. I guess what I’m saying is that traveling has allowed my thoughts to better understand what I am actually feeling in the moment. It’s very exciting!

I owe many thanks to the individuals who have pushed me in this area and allowed me to take this on at my own pace. You know who you are and I sincerely appreciate you more than words can say.

That being said, I would like to explain where the root of all this reflection and nostalgia is coming from: The other night we all went to our Czech professor’s house and his wife cooked goulash for us! It was pretty delicious and if that wasn’t exciting enough, when we walked in the dining room there were about 8 bottles of bordeaux sitting on the table… I’ve told many of you about the great conflicts that have occurred between the group of students on this trip but let me tell you, if we would have just had a plethora of bordeaux lying around I think this semester would have gone a lotttt smoother than it did!
So, I was already in good spirits, having a really good conversation with Brookelynn and Justin on the couch and then, suddenly, in an instant, I saw the wine kick in. It was a beautiful moment for us all.
We went around and did one of those “complete the story” games where one person says about 3 sentences of the story and passes it on to their neighbor and you see how crazy the end gets. Of course, you can all safely assume what I added to this story… yes, I added the characters of Tupac, a penguin and a giraffe to lead the rest of the characters to safety. From then on out the story was obviously amazing…

Anyways, after we ate our meal someone suggested that we all go around and say what we miss most from home and what we will miss most about Prague… and this is where the not so great spectrum of the wine started to rear it’s head. Everyone started making long winded speeches about how they’ve changed and how this semester has affected them and blahblahblah girls started crying (yeah.. in case you forgot.. i am a girl...) It was a little messy and totally unexpected!

There suddenly was so much pressure to say something profound and meaningful about the past 3 months of my life and all the people around me and I had no idea what to say! When it was my turn to profess my love to everyone, thank my professors and talk about how I’m a better person, I decided to instead, call everyone on their bullshit. Haha-- I didn’t get profane or anything but I pointed out the elephant in the room that I felt everyone was ignoring. Don’t worry, everyone laughed and generally agreed with the comments I said. Honestly what is said is kind of a blur because I was filled with so much adrenaline, anxiety and yes, bordeaux… but I do recall saying the exact phrase: “In a strange way, I want to thank all of you for exceeding my expectations on how difficult this trip would be.”
And that pretty much sums it up.

All you need to know beyond that is that after all of these speeches were finished-- me, Brookelynn and the boys rounded out the night at a bar closer to campus where we listened to lil wayne and skipped in the street...


That’s all that I’ve got for whoever of you are actually still reading.
Keep up with the countdown, 13 days til I return to the states and talk all of your ears off!

(and im soooooooo excited that crystal dennis and SAMMY will be staying with us for so long during the holidays! :) )

"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera" - Dorthea Lange

Updates:
- I officially have ONE MONTH left in prague!
- Tammy and mimi arrive in prague TOMORROW!
- I will be traveling to Vienna with them over thanksgiving break!
- I still don't have a place to live when i get back to school in the spring!

I had two presentations this week, one on Jan hus and his role in the reformation and then another one that was similar to the assignment in italy--- we had to take the class to any location around the city and incorporate it into our discussion on religion and art. So far people have presented on the jewish quarter, visherad palace and yesterday we went to the amazing Mucha gallery(absolutely stunning, i am now slightly obsessed with him)


This morning i took the class to Jan Saudek's photography gallery which I really liked, and I'm a big fan of his work. Most of the class seemed really into it and it sparked a lot of cool conversations.
Just to give you a brief bio: He was born and raised in prague, but because he is jewish, him and a lot of his family ended up in concentration camps. He was luckily able to survive and return to prague, and he lived here through the soviet occupation.
A lot of his work is very contraversial, he does a lot of nudes and sexually driven work because his goal is to explore the subconscious as well as the world of fantasy. He also places a lot of focus on the overarching human connection we all share, and exhibits the beauty in all humankind in his photos. He takes photos of everything from families to lovers and does so in an incredibly interesting, unique way. He hand colors most of his photos and layers negatives to create a great element of mystery-- basically, he's great. enough of my rambling.





Since I have tons of school work to do I thought it'd be cool to post a blog from my sacred communication/film class on this blog for you guys to read-- we're supposed to write about outside films we view as well and I recently watched this one on my own thanks to the glorious internet. as you're about to find out, these blog are very informal and have no real structure which allow me to turn in my ridiculous rants in for an actual grade haha.
here you go:




“My name is Tracey Berkowitz. Fifteen. Just a normal girl who hates herself.”

Ok, if you’ve already heard me ramble on about this film this past week I apologize, and it would be in your best interest to stop reading right now. For those of you who have yet to hear my reaction to this film, this is your final chance to turn away from my ranting.

You’re still with me? Alright. Let me preface this by just getting this out in the open: yes, I am slightly obsessed with Ellen Page.
Quickly moving on, The film “The Tracy Fragments” is a wonderful work of art, extremely experimental, and of course, very well acted. In particular, this film incorporates an interesting technique I have never seen before, which is to use multiple cameras as well as intense editing after shooting to create, as the title suggests, fragments on the screen.

This film style enables the story to become somewhat of a mystery, almost never fully revealing straight on shots of what is occurring in pivotal scenes of the film. By doing this, as well as telling the story in a jumbled manner (think “Momento”), the viewer must create the truth of the story in their own mind.
“When things happen to people, they radiate a light. Because they have a picture caught inside them. Because they were there and you weren't. And because you only got a piece. And because all you can do is shrink and blow up that one tiny piece.”
This film gives viewers many fragments of the life of Ellen Page’s character, Tracey Berkowitz, and it us up to us to put them together.

While all this great and challenging imagery is going on for the viewers, Tracey is struggling with her own idea of what the truth is, so in a sense we are in this crazy mess together. This immediately made me think of Wenders and Kieslowski’s work which both do a great job of making the audience an active part of their films. Because the story is told backwards and it is not obvious what exactly is happening in every shot, the fragments must come together in the viewers’ minds rather than on the screen. It blurs the lines of reality and fiction, and calls to question many of the topics we’ve discussed in class about philosophy and the search for meaning.

The film touches on many religious questions and Tracey’s character brings up aspects of eastern philosophy such as re-incarnation and the oneness of all living things.
“When a horse falls, foam comes out of its mouth. When it falls, the legs of the horse thrash and the horse is no good... So somebody shoots it. The horse turns into glue. A machine puts the glue into bottles and children squeeze the bottles to get the glue out and stick bits of paper onto cards. Glue gets on the children's hands and the children eat the glue. And the children become the horse.”

Now to give a brief overview of the strange story depicted in the film.
Tracey is a teenage girl completely neglected by her family and constantly made fun of at school for her androgyny, referred to by most of the student body as an “it.” She struggles with her hate for her parents, unable to decide if their ignoring her is a just reason for feeling so abused and alone. To deal with this torment Tracey creates a great fantasy in her mind of the new token “rock and roll/ rebel without a cause” boy in school falling in love with her. She exhibits much more independence and courage than an average 15 year old, and her recklessness towards life is apparently due to the fact that she has no one in her life to rely on or care about her. That is, no one except her young brother, who suddenly and mysteriously goes missing. This is where the story both begins and ends, and it is up to the audience to put the messy story of Tracey’s life to understand what actually occurred on the day her brother disappeared.

I would highly recommend this film although I would give the warning that although it still has the mature and incredible wit of Ellen Page, this is certainly no “Juno.” It is a quite dark and depressing tale of a messed up teenage girl who is facing the rough and awkward time of being a teenager completely on her own. No friends, no family and no edgy, artsy boyfriend to help out along the way. Tracey must discover for herself how to understand and deal with truth and reality while facing the ultimate question, “how do you know what’s real and what’s not when the whole world is inside your head?”



that's all i've got for now, talk to you soon.
xoxo
-a

"i have never been more hopeful that we will get there, we as a people will get there."

written 11/7

we did it! i'm so proud of america! i can say for the first time in a very long time i am truly proud to be an american. i only wish i could've been home to celebrate. i was trying to stay up all night to watch it, but knew there was a possibility of me falling asleep so i set my alarm for 6am thinking it wouldn't be announced before midnight... only problem is that the results were apparently announced about 1030 east coast time so i didn't get to see all the stuff leading up to the final announcement, but i did wake up just in time for obama's speech, after which i burst into tears, jumped up and down and ran down the hall of our apartment by myself... at 630 am...
not being there for this historic moment made me really sad and miss so many of you who i know would've hugged and danced with me for so long. and in the same instant of all this excitement and celebration i'm also really upset about prop. 8 passing in california. i am obviously upset about the other states banning same sex marriage as well, but this in particular...i just can not comprehend how it is ok to give someone a right that is doing absolutely no harm to anyone, in fact it is doing just the opposite, and then take it away. it makes me so sad.

yeah, as you can tell i'm feeling a bit nostalgic and homesick this week. i think it's also due to the realization that i only have a little over a month left here, although i do have a new appreciation for cnu and will be excited to return there in the spring.
i now have a lot of work to catch up on that i've been putting off for weeks... but i guess it doesn't really matter since my professor has yet to set one due date thus far. you all know i am a laid back person, but if you give me no structure at all i begin to lose my mind. i register for next semester's classes today and this weekend i will get atleast 2 papers done, hopefully 3. i dont really care that i have a lot of work to do now because the traveling and experiences i've had far outweigh turning b.s. papers in 'on time', and i think i could really use the alone time and the audience of open-ended philosophy papers to let out my thoughts.

next post i will add pics and more info about berlin because there is so much to say about that glorious city!

if you have some extra time i would highly recommend reading this: http://tinyurl.com/6x3h72 (the first sentence of the article is pretty ironic..)


"Watching the returns on election night was an amazing experience. Barack Obama is our new president. Change is here. I, like millions of Americans, felt like we had taken a giant step towards equality. We were watching history.
This morning, when it was clear that Proposition 8 had passed in California, I can’t explain the feeling I had. I was saddened beyond belief. Here we just had a giant step towards equality and then on the very next day, we took a giant step away.
I believe one day a “ban on gay marriage” will sound totally ridiculous. In the meantime, I will continue to speak out for equality for all of us."
- ellen degeneres



"to have a moment that means this much, that you can put alongside the emancipation proclamation in our history, in terms of what the idea of America is, and what the relationship of Americans are to one another, so that we can speak to the rest of the world ... it's sort of worth crying about."
-rachel maddow

i hope you are well, and that you remember,
'If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.'

<3a

so many updates, so little sleep..

hi guys!

first: happy election day! i hope you didn't have to wait in line too long to vote.
sorry again for a huge delay in updating this, i've been traveling a lot and had some lovely visitors.
fall break was great and i think my family had a lot of fun on our trip-- my favorite part was probably visiting the small towns in southern germany where people seriously wore liederhosen as a daily situation... it was pretty hillarious. i also just really liked showing my family around prague and sharing the greatness that this city has to offer-- overall, really good times.
and then having caitlin here after that was freaking awesome, and we explored a lot of prague that i hadn't been to before such as the wallenstien garden, the jewish cemetary, the museum of modern art, and i finally wrote on the lennon wall. we also took an epic adventure to berlin in which i never wanted to return from.

i have so much i could write here about all the places i recently visited but i'm not gonna bore you and instead just gonna give you the most important points:
- asolo, italy probably has the best pizza in the world
- we saw a man fall out of a gondola and into the water in venice
- the hills are in fact alive with the sound of music
- i want to rent a car and drive all over europe-- but first austria and germany
- i want to learn german
- berlin might be my favorite city in the world

i hope everyone is doing well-- i haven't heard from a lot of you in awhile so i hope that means things are really busy and exciting in your lives.
i've gotten like 7 hours of sleep in the past two nights combined so i'm pretty exhausted ( seems to be a recurring theme here..) so sorry for cutting this short.

i really hope that tomorrow we can wake up with a new hope for our country and our identity as americans. i will be glued to cnn all night as long as i can stay awake into the wee hours of the morning here.






me and crystal on the charles bridge


in asolo-- with the glorious pizza


the fam with angelo, our good friend in asolo


me and mom in venice on the patio of the guggenheim



me and my first german friend in his oktoberfest hat



some more of my german friends in front of some beautiful scenery


in the bavarian alps, in front of the the zugspitze (the tallest mountain in germany)


talk to you soon.
-amanda

What a maverick would do in this situation?

Ok, now that the deadline to register to vote has passed and election day is quickly approaching (remember, the last debate is this week!) I wanted to share some info I've come across recently.

1. insightful/ upsetting new york times article on the hatred that is being produced from the intense negative campaigning: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12r ich.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin.

2. inspiring psa created by leonardo dicaprio:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QClgZ7iNKBQ&NR =1
if that youtube link dies by any chance, you can just search leonardo's psa on voting and it should come up.
sarah silverman and jonah hill crack me up!


3. hillarious:






as most of you know the obama one was created early on in his campaign and i've just recently come across the other two responses. love itttt.


4. i tried to post the other clip of tina fey doing her dead on impersonation of sarah palin before but i guess nbc keeps removing it off youtube-- you can search for them on directly on the saturday night live website, find it yourself on youtube or use this link while it still works. this is the full clip of snl covering the vp debates:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/vp-debate-open-palin-biden/727421/

"and for all you six pack joes out there... maverick!"

the funniest/scariest part about it is that real interviews with her are almost just the same...



let me know if you come across anything you think i'd me interested in, please post links and such.



OTHER FANTASTIC NEWS:
my parents and crystal and dennis are arriving today in prague!!
my fall break starts wednesday after class so they'll spend 3 days here and then we will be leaving wednesday afternoon to travel to asolo, venice(again), and then munich and other small towns in southern germany. i'm so pumped!

ok that is all for now. talk to you soon!


p.s. JIM AND PAM FOREVERRRRRRRRRRR!

Life back in Prague

HELLOOOOO!!!
Sorry for the delay in posting, I'm alive and well and have been back in Prague for 5days now. I've been putting off blogging because everytime i think about it words escape me from describing the two weeks of travels. Generally, the trip was much harder than I thought it would be and I was incredibly happy to return to Prague. The overall experience of being with the same small group of people for so long was really hard for me, and I am learning a lot about patience and about myself in general.

Ok Quick overview of each city:
[italy]


Venice: I loved the city and thought it was really beautiful. Our presentation went well and I ended up learning a lot about Venetian art and culture. I spent a lot of time with Elise and Garrett here and we ate tons of gelato and pizza. We also managed to find a place that sold wine in plastic bottles for like 3 euros and we spent our last night sitting by the grand canal with a bottle of our own.





Florence: I didn't like the city itself at all, it seemed dull and lifeless, but redeeming factor was the museums were awesome. seeing michelangelo's David in person was incredible-- the work is absoulte perfection. I snuck a photo, even though I wasn't supposed to.



Also, Botticelli's Birth of Venus was stunning. I stood in front of it for so long trying to take in it's beauty. This work was held in the Uffizi where works of Da Vinci were also held, which was also incredible to see.
Also, I managed to somehow get talk my way into free cappucino for me and a free glass of wine for garrett after having a brief conversation with a man that owned a cafe--- and let me tell you, it was delicious!



Rome: very big city, much larger than I thought it would be. The trevie fountain was probably my favorite part-- i loved people watching there and seeing everyone follow the tradition of throwing three coins over their shoulders into the fountian.

Also, it was really cool to learn more about the coloseum-- i had no idea they used to flood the inside of it and use it to re-enact naval battles! and people were actually killed! craziness! and all to distract the public from the fact that the government could not feed them... how lovely.



[greece]
Athens: Totally not what I expected. Kind of a let down to be honest, but being on top of mars hill was awesome, and by far my favorite part.

I went there every day I was in athens and just watched the city below and thought about the philosophers such as socrates gathering there and then Paul preaching from there. On my last day in Greece I met a Christian Missionary, Couy on top of Mars hill and talked to him for a long time. He is riding his horse all over Europe talking to people and normally if i heard about this guy I would think be was insane but he was really adorable and had a thick southern accent (he was from new mexico) and just kept saying "aw yeah man, Jesus is awesome!" It was really funny and interesting to talk to him about how he just rides his horse wherever he wants and has all these cops yell at him-- it's a pretty interesting method of attracting people to you in order to preach haha.

Also, the hostel we stayed in was really cute except... me and another girl Brookelynn got stuck with what we endearingly called "the hobbit hole." No kidding, the ceiling was like 2 inches above my head and it was probably constructed for midgets. The first night we were so exhausted from traveling and everyone's drama that we went crazy and made up an elaborate story about the hobbit hole being previously inhabited by smurfs and laughed about it so much.. until we had to go to sleep in this tiny little cave... and we definitely slept with the light on cause it was creepy. oh man, it was great.

Corinth: Not much in this place at all except for a small area of ruins we visited, but it was interesting to read the story of Paul traveling to Corinth and being judged while standing next to the actual spot it occurred. It was also cool to see the Corinithian canal--


Sounio: Probably my favorite place in greece that we visited. The temple of Posiden was at the top of this mountain that overlooked the beautiful water, a perfect location for the god of the sea. Even though the idea of the temple was kind of intimidating, it was incredibly calming to visit.


After we walked around the ruins we ate at this restaraunt near the water and I had some amazing Calamari and then we went swimming in the Aegan sea! Probably my favorite part of this whole two week excursion was swimming out in the clear water where we found a cave. The ground had a bunch of sea urchints on it so we had to navigate around them to get inside, and once we did it was amazing to see the coral and Sea Aneminies. There was a spot where part of the cave was carved out and sunlight was streaming through the rocks-- it was absolutely beautiful and i wished i had a waterproof camera so bad!




Delphi: really cute, quiet mountain town. I met an adorable old man here who was one of the security guys at the temple of Athena. He said a few words to me in broken english and once I responded he proceeded to tell me many detailed stories in Greek. It was hillarious. He also picked up his cat and made it dance for me while he hummed a song. He was such a cute man and we seriously communicated even with the language barrier. Then a little German man who was also a tourist came and talked with us and the Greek man gave us both olive leaves-- which are a sign of peace and friendship. It was so sweet!


I learned a lot about the Oracle of Delphi and ancient Greek religion, and the ruins here were probably my favorite of the ones we've visited.




Notable things I learned on this trip:
- Everyone feels sorry for Americans. As soon as most people found out I was from the states they either shouted "obama!" or something about the economy such as my favorite, "your economy go down down down, for you everything is 50% off in my store!" it was pretty funny.
- A lot of people have a really strange idea of what it means to 'look like an American'. A lot of people thought i was italian and that some of the girls I was with were Swedish or German, but they wouldnt believe we were from the U.S. I guess they didn't get the memo that the states were founded by european immigrants and have one of the most diverse societies?
- I like trains a lot
- The Euro sucks
- Prostitution is legal in Greece
- A LOT of greek men have unibrows
- Lime gelato is freaking amazing and I cen't believe I've been missing it all my life

Leaving for Italy tomorrow!

I can't believe I'm writing this-- I leave tomorrow for my 2 week trip through Italy and Greece!! I have most of my research done on my location in Venice-- Santa Maria Della Salute, a Baroque Cathedral erected in the late 1600's in thanksgiving for Venice prevailing through the plague of 1630. And we're trying to work out taking a water bus to get a tour of the grand canal at sunset on the first day we get there. I reallllly hope that works out! If not, Mom and Crystal: we're doing that!

I'm generally ready to go, although I just found out that we can only bring one 50 lb bag(no personal carry on item)-- so I'm gonna need to re-adjust my pack and try to safely fit my camera in there... It's gonna be interesting living out of a backpack for 2 weeks for the first time, so when you see pictures and I'm wearing the same clothes the whole time you can just laugh at me.

This weekend wasn't that eventful, I mostly relaxed for the first time-- which was awesome! I got a little bit of school work done, but mostly I tried to mentally prepare myself for this trip and reflect on all my time in Prague so far.
The most notable thing last week was probably going to a ice hockey game with the two rival prague teams: sparta praha vs. slavia praha. Of course I rooted for the underdogs/team with the coolest name: SPARTA! One of the guys in our group, Garrett, explained the basic rules of the game, and we got really into cheering for our team. Unfortunately... we lost a bit of momentum in the final period and ended up losing.. but it was still really fun.





When I did go downtown this weekend I mostly just tried to go to new neighborhoods and I photographed a lot. It's been hovering around 45 degrees for the past week so walking around a lot was a bit cold, and coffee breaks were very necessary to warm up-- unfortunately I've come to find that there is pretty much no such thing as drip coffee in Prague, only extravagent lattes served in skinny clear glasses, often topped with whipped cream... and yes, that means whole milk. They're also relatively expensive, around 60-75 crowns (around 4-5 dollars) which is pretty similar to the states, and considering beer is about 25-35 crowns in a cafe (around 2 dollars) and around 12-20 crowns in the grocery store (1-1.50 dollars) so, your choice of beverage is pretty much made for you... and Prague doesn't have the highest intake of beer in the world for nothing. Yeah, that's right, they beat Ireland and Germany.



It's finally fully setting in that life at CNU and at home is carrying on without me, but I'm suprisingly fine with that. Of course, I miss the people, and the overall comfort of having a support system around me, especially in an unfamiliar place-- I've talked to many of you about my friendships here, and while they are fun, and I generally get along with everyone here, it is difficult to establish a real spark in any of these relationships and there are moments where I wish certain people from back home or school were here so that I could just feel understood.-- But hey, this is why skype is the greatest thing ever! And I think this is not only a real test for me, getting through this by myself, and growing through my adventures, it's a test for all my relationships back home with friends and family-- and it's wonderful to think of the immense love I have in so many of you, and I can't thank you enough for that reassuring thought in times where I feel like I am alone here.




It's funny because the latest film we watched for our sacred communication class called "blow-up" (a 1960's film about a photographer) really relates to this for me. It was all about reality vs. perception and whether anyone can distinguish the lines between these two. For me, there have been many moments here when I wonder what the heck kind of wack perception the people around me are in when, for example,they don't notice certain aspects of the city, or completely miss the point of a film after we watch and discuss it in class, or just seem to be taking this whole opportunity for granted... and this is a perfect example of where I need to grow and possibly expand my own perception on reality haha.
But all in all I don't regret coming here in the slightest, and I can already tell it's one of the best decisions I've made. And it's only just begun!
(although, i do realllly wish i had been there for the t.digs + scamper camp out!)

I'll leave you with some lines from the second film we watched called "Wings of Desire"/"The Sky Above Berlin"-- it's a German film, which America destroyed with creating the movie "City of Angels"(which we also watched and it is awful! Some of the girls here got on my case for laughing at the end while they were crying, but if you've seen the movie, and know me at all, you'll know why). The story lines are somewhat similar: based on an angel who wants to discover what it is to be human, but they take on completely different interpretations of what this means. Anyways, wings of desire is now one of my favorite films of all time and I STRONGLY recommend that everyone watch it if you haven't seen it. It's truly one of, if not the most romantic films I've ever seen, and not in a sappy love story sort of way --its about an appreciation of life and understanding what it means to yearn and long for a connection with someone, and then learn to love them.

This is one of the Angels, Damiel, talking about his envy of humans:
"It's great to live by the spirit, to testify day by day for eternity, only what's spiritual in people's minds. But sometimes I'm fed up with my spiritual existence. Instead of forever hovering above I'd like to feel a weight grow in me to end the infinity and to tie me to earth. I'd like, at each step, each gust of wind, to be able to say "Now." Now and now" and no longer "forever" and "for eternity." To sit at an empty place at a card table and be greeted, even by a nod. Every time we participated, it was a pretense. Wrestling with one, allowing a hip to be put out in pretense, catching a fish in pretense, in pretense sitting at tables, drinking and eating in pretense. Having lambs roasted and wine served in the tents out there in the desert, only in pretense. No, I don't have to beget a child or plant a tree but it would be rather nice coming home after a long day to feed the cat, like Philip Marlowe, to have a fever and blackended fingers from the newspaper, to be excited not only by the mind but, at last, by a meal, by the line of a neck by an ear. To lie! Through one's teeth. As you're walking, to feel your bones moving along. At last to guess, instead of always knowing. To be able to say "ah" and "oh" and "hey" instead of "yea" and "amen."


I thought those words were very powerful and really got me thinking about appreciating life and living as much as I can!
And thanks to Becca bear for this lovely picture from the Little Grill that also serves as such a reminder <3





I'll be out of contact for the next 2 weeks, but i'll update this as soon as I get back. I may be able to check E-mail(and probs facebook) at some of the hostels, so it would be lovely to get some updates from you all as well while I am away.
Send positive vibes into the sky while I'm traveling, please!

Live well Today!
Hugs and Hugs,
Amanda

Exicting travel news!

It's finally official that the two travel excursions with my class will be to italy and greece!
And we are leaving really freaking soon!!!!

The dates are as follows:

September 23: Leave Prague, arrive in Venice mid-day

September 24: Spend all day in Venice

September 25: Leave Venice, Arrive in Florence mid-day

September 26: Spend the day in Florence

September 27: Leave Florence, Arrive in Rome

September 28: Spend the day in Rome

September 29: Arrive in Athens

September 30: Spend the day in Athens

October 1: Spend the day in Corinth

October 2: Leave for Delphi

October 3: Spend the day in Delphi

October 4: Go back to Athens

October 5: Spend the day in Athens

October 6: Return to Prague


VERY EXCITING STUFF!! it's kind of unfortunate that we are covering all that so quickly, but it's awesome we're getting to go to all these places!

Also, our first big assignment for the program is to divide into 3 groups and plan the itinerary for each italian city we visit. I am in a group with two girls, Lauren and Tricia and we decided to do Venice. We are in charge of planning half the day of the 23rd and all day on the 24th. We are to focus on our class themes of sacred communication, religion and art and the vision of christianity so, we will obviously structure a large part of our itinerary around visiting cathedrals as well as comparing the different architectural styles in the city, primarily along the grand canal. This is probably the coolest school assignment I've ever gotten, but on the other hand it's kind of scary having the travel experience of 10 other people in your hands... so, we'll see how this goes.
Hopefully this means that I will get to know Venice fairly well and be able to be a tourguide for my parents and siblings when they come vists, haha.

So, that's the big news as far as school goes--
as far as exploring prague goes... this weekend was pretty good, but full of a lot of catching up on a lot of reading for my classes, but the four day weekends make this much easier.
I did have a lot of fun at a really strange/hillarious club here though, called chateau rouge. we randomly went to this place after we saw a jazz/blues band at a small venue near old town so it was a bittt of a change of pace..

It was just what i always hoped a european club would be: a lotttttt of techno music, fog and interesting people

The first floor was your average bar, but there were two levels underneath in the basement-- the first big room at the bottom of the spiral staircase had a windy hallway with one end leading to the bathrooms and another staircase to the lowest level, and the other end leading to a large dance floor, with a seating area and big bar.
We checked out the lowest level first, just to see if it was playing different music and different people and what we found was about 7 people frantically running in circles, rigidly moving their arms up and down, and singing along to the song playing... what song was that, you ask? "la cucaracha."
funniest thing evvvvvvvver!!!!!!! in case you don't believe me:



So, we quickly ran back up the stairs and encountered the bathrooms...which basically served as re-chargers for a certain type of strange, sweaty creatures who often piled in each stall 4 people at a time, and exited with fanny packs in hand, giggling with their newly found glowing eyes and headed for the dance floor... which was a wholllle nother story!

when we first got there, we all got a beer and tried to feel out the place, and at that time there was just a small group of guys dancing-- we started talking to them and found out they were all international students-- some from the states, others from australia-- and my group quickly stepped onto the dance floor... and we were ATTACKED my the fog machine!



and there was the token guy who was in outerspace, fist pumping by himself for about 2 solid hours. it was wonderful:



it was so funny! suddenly i couldn't see further than 3 feet in front of my face, just barely making out my friends hysterically laughing, just like me, and dancing to the pulsing techno. we ended up dancing for like 3 hours and tons of people starting dancing too... we didn't meet any puppies, but all in all it turned into a really fun night, and by far one of the best experiences of prague yet.

i tried to make this one shorter, and failed miserably so i'm sorry about that.
to make up for it, here is a picture of me and barty:



and the trailer for the phenomenal film i went to see downtown last night-- Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens--- (they are having 'top doc's: best of sundance' here for the next week)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEjho8I8XBY


i admire her so much, and highly recommend this film!


i hope you are all doing well back home, and please send me e-mails, skype calls and comments here to let me know how you guys are doing!

Ask this one about the dinosaurs...

So, it's been a bit diffucult to keep up with all the news from the states over here because i've been so busy and pretty much anything i do hear about is related to the election and negative campaigning etc... so it was really great when i found out about this video on youtube... it's just too funny not to share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc3Zxq078ns


"Global warming is just God hugging us closer" hahaha.

I hope everyone had a good weekend!

<3amanda

My Apartment

the entrance to my room-- the kitchen.

past the counters and the refrigerator-- hooks for my jackets,scarves and hats


my bed, nightstand, and osito.

from the other side -bathroom and kitchen.

view of my whole room from the window sill.

and the bathroom (below)

the view from my window. (left)

PRAGUE: THE BEGINNING

I'm in prague! It's crazy to think i've been here two and a half weeks now, but it's true. Time has been flying by and it is very difficult for my thoughts to catch up with me, so i figured this blog might aid in my ability to share my experiences as well as keep track of everything. I don't even know where to begin, but here goes...

First off, I'm SO HAPPY that i have my own room! At first I was bummed that all the other girls were together and I was down the hall, but that was for a very brief moment until i remembered who i am--- a total introvert who thrives off of interesting conversations and connections with people, but who can not function without substantial alone time. It's so wonderful knowing that I can come back to my room and be alone, and cook dinner or watch a movie or write or take a bath and just be alone and soak in the day. And the added bonus to this living situation is the ability to stay neutral in the drama-filled zone that is 6 girls living in close quarters of each other. Let me tell you, I am not envious of that! With only 10 of us in the group-- having all our classes together, eating meals together, going out together, and traveling together-- I am certain i would already be insane if I didn't have my own room.

Moving on to the good stuff-- my first reaction to this city is a general sense of disbelief, and awe and I often find myself very overwhelmed. I say this because everytime I look around I can't believe that Prague is as old as it is, not only because of the history that lines each and every cobblestone street, but the beauty and the overall 'clean-ness' of the city. I don't really know how to explain it, but it is simply one of the cleanest urban areas I have ever seen. Maybe the all the bridges, the large presence of parks and the bright signs blind me to see it, but there is something very unique about this city that i have never seen anywhere else. The awe starts to kick in next, being surrounded by such amazing architecture as well as natural beauty of the Vltava that flows through the whole city and promotes this sense of calm over the people here. In every direction you look, you are bound to see one of the remarkable landmarks of Prague, whether it is the castle, the charles bridge, the tv tower or petrin hill, there is something exciting around you at all times. And yes, this is where I begin to become overwhelmed... there is SO MUCH to see and do here!

I can't even believe someone could make a 'top ten list of things to do in prague' without having their head explode because there are seriously so many museums, parks, churches, cemetaries, cafes, and pubs that I would already highly recommend to any travelers and I've barely experienced all this place has to offer! I probably wouldn't feel so strongly if I wasn't trying to balance these adventures with all my classes and attempting to learn some czech (i find myself pronouncing everything in a spanish accent... which is only like 10 words anyways...) but everytime i think of doing research about other places to travel in europe my brain gets veryyy angry at me. It really is so much to take in all at once, and the excitement of the city and the people really make me want to spend all my time exploring more. The fact that we have all of our class hours monday-wednesday really helps, but at the same time, being in the same classroom for about 6 hours a day talking about sacred communication and the philosophical meaning behind art and religion really wears me out.

oh, haha, I must explain my two professors: Dr. Redick, the professor from CNU, is a total hippie and a generally ridiculous man. He often gets really excited about what he's talking about and then somehow always manages to relate our conversations about the symbolic meaning of religious traditions to a story about how he was high on shrooms... no joke! it's crazy! He is a very adventurous man who is generally happy about life and living and experiencing the most he can, which is a really great mindset for traveling, but at the same time he's not the best planner or communicater and I sometimes find myself wondering what the hell he's gonna do next. Like, yesterday instead of having class, one hour before we were supposed to meet he told us that we were going on a 3 hour hike. That's awesome, but at the same time, I was so physically and emotionally exhausted I was not ready for something to be sprung on me like that...and i ended up having a really bad asthma attack and crying on the top of a mountain... haha... funnnn times..... But yeah, I'm trying to find a balance between greatly appreciating him and dealing with the areas we clash-- particularly his inability to understand that not everyone likes to be spontaneous to the point of not knowing where you are going or what the heck you will be doing in 5 minutes... I guess it's something I need to work on too, but the second week in a foreign country isn't particularly the time I want to be doing that...haha

Moving on, my czech professor is absolutely adorable! his name is Dr. Kabat, and i'm pretty sure he is the jolly-est i've ever met. He sometimes struggles with certain english words, and he has a slight lisp which makes it even funnier when he cracks so many cute jokes. But yeah, he is a really great guy, and actually took part in protests and underground meetings during the communist era andddd he was a part of the velevet revolution! It's so exciting to learn from his stories instead of a text book, of how things really were and how scary it was to live here, just 40 years ago. To give you an idea of how cute this man is-- he took us on a tour of malastranska which literally translated is "small town" and it is the smallest quarter, next to old town square. He was walking around, showing us some old churches and then he got on the topic of Christmas, and how it's celebrated differently in the czech republic-- he then said something about baby jesus, and i quickly raised my hand and asked him about the infant jesus of prague that my aunt noemi had told me so much about, and his jaw dropped. He couldn't believe that I knew about the baby jesus, and was so shocked that he gave me a prize in class the next day, which was a little glass baby jesus.

soo, there's the background info, and i don't want to bore you with any more of the details of settling in, but you've got the basics. So far the best day was probably last weekend when i went with a couple girls to a photo exhibit called 'liberation, occupation.' It was a collection of a bunch of different photographers work, with the left side of the gallery being the liberation of czechloslovakia by the ussr, and the right side of the gallery was the invasion of russian tanks on wenscelas square. It was by far the best photography exhibit i've ever seen, and really helped me understand the czech people a lot more. I can't even explain in words how great not only the historical documentation was, but also the amazing composition by each of the photographers-- it was incredible. After the exhibit we saw a bride and groom in kampa park taking wedding pictures and then accidentally discovered a line of about 25 plastic, yellow penguins on the dock of the vltava river, behind the charles bridge-- i think they were associated with the museum of modern art, but they were hillarious. Then we went to the lenin wall (which i am very eager to get some paint and write on myself), and walked accross the charles bridge.... yeah, it was a pretty phenomenal day.

and in other news, last night i met a realllllly adorable puppy in a pub and his name was barty, and we became good friends.... and i was also offered cocaine and extacy.

ok, i think that is enough information for now.
talk to you soon!

<3

p.s. my skype name is the same as the blog, AROCinPRAHA so call me!
(just remember i'm 6 hours ahead of eastern standard time)