A Little Bit of Everything

It's definitely been an eventful past few days! On Saturday, I traveled with 3 other friends, Chelsea, Madison, and Silva, to Kutna Hora, which is a town about an hour train ride outside of Prague. It felt nice to get out of the city even for the day, and this was my first experience taking the train here. It was a highly successful endeavor getting to and from Kutna Hora (although we kept worrying we'd get on the wrong train!), and we all loved the fact that the trains had the individual "compartments" for about 6-8 people each, with a sliding door on each compartment. I know I sound like a little kid, but it reminded me exactly of the trains that you see in old movies. I love Europe :-)

The first thing that we went to see was the Sedlec Ossuary, which-and I'm not making this up at all-was fully decorated on the inside with human bones. It's the kind of thing you have to see if you go to the Czech Republic, and we were not disappointed by what we saw. Creeped out, yes. But it was also incredibly fascinating. Back story: during the Great Plague in Europe of the 1300s, thousands upon thousands of people were dying, and the monks ran out of graves and began just piling the bones into piles inside the church. Then, one of the monks began to make decorations inside the church out of the bones: wall hangings, pyramids, a gigantic chandelier...everything you can imagine. And their goal in this was not to be morbid, but rather to exemplify the mortality of humanity. It still came off as disconcerting, but it was also a very cool sight. This church has been featured in many horror films and novels, as you might imagine...

We also saw St. Barbara's Cathedral, and although we couldn't go inside unfortunately, the exterior of the church was incredible. The stones on the church glowed in the sunset, making it even more incredible. The train station in Kutna Hora looked like something out of an old movie too, although in much less of a dreamy way and more of a dark-and-lonely-train station kind of way. We girls stuck close together, needless to say. It was altogether a very interesting and fun trip, and we were proud to have explored a different part of the Czech Republic.

Sunday night, food poisoning hit. Luckily, it only lasted 24 hours, but those 24 hours weren't very fun. The unfortunate part was that normally I would have tried to take it easy all day since I don't have class til 6:30 PM on Mondays, but I had a presentation that night and I had to finish working on it and present it (I don't take sick days...sorry, I've got this wild never-ever-quit attitude...I've missed a total of zero classes in the past 2 semesters of college, maybe 5 or 6 total in 5 semesters. I'm a nerd...). Well, I worked all day, finished the presentation, got all dressed up to give my presentation, rode to class, aaaaand: class canceled. At least the work is done for next week now...

I started my second week at my internship, and it wasn't just a first-week fluke: I love love love my internship. Rather than feeling like they have to scramble to find boring filing jobs for me to do in the office, my supervisors are filling me in on their major projects (heck, it's an NGO, they're thrilled to have free help from someone who's equally thrilled to have an opportunity like this!). I needed an international internship to graduate with my Global Studies degree, in case anyone was wondering why I am doing this, and while it initially felt like a chore having to get an internship, this has majorly enhanced my study abroad experience. The funny thing is, when I'd listen in class to what some of the things NGOs do, it'd seem boring to me at times, and I worried about whether or not this was really something I'd want to do. But when I get to do these things and see real results, rather than just discuss possible results in a class, it's exciting. I'm also looking forward to going to some of the human rights, NGO, and refugee aid seminars coming up in March and April, because they'll give me an opportunity to travel around the Czech Republic with my colleagues.

It's starting to get warmer here! Although my Wisconsin mindset tells me to remain skeptical until May that spring is here, my Czech roommates tell me that things start to warm up in February here. So I can be hopeful...right? Oh, and as much as I praise the public transportation here, I can't help but realize how many bizarre smells are inherent with public transportation. I bring this up because today was one of those days where both on the metro AND the tram to the Burma Center, I thought I might be sick from the gross smells all around me. It's funny how every different country (and city, I suppose) has different smells compared with home. I can't say I miss the smell of cows from back home either, though...