The first week

Hey guys~
I'm tired, so I will try to be a bit more organized to try to make things less confusing. Trust me, you want it. I wrote that first sentence three times before I figured out how it made sense.

Classes:
I'm taking three classes, each worth 5 credits. Class is from 10-12, and 1-3 Monday through Thursday, except when we're on our trips to other countries. For instance, this weekend we went to Vienna, Austria. Each trip has the days planned, and like a half day that's free. They try to make it full of interesting stuff, but it also counts as a lecture, in a way.

History: East European Communism and Everyday Life
This is taught by Professor Vera Sokolova, who is actually the head of the department. We call all of our professors by their first name. Vera has a degree in History, and is head of the Gender Studies department at Charles University here in Prague. This means that she is constantly in connection with the government and working with equality issues. This class has interesting, but long readings. The lectures can be pretty dry, but they're super interesting. Its also really cool because Vera grew up under Communism, so she has firsthand knowledge of how this stuff worked.

Political Science: Democracy and Development in Central and Eastern Europe
This is taught by Professor Michael Smith, who is actually Vera's husband. They have 3 kids together. Their oldest son has diabetes, and while Vera's mother takes care of the younger two kids while they're on these trips together, its hard for her to keep on top of Sebastian's stuff, so he comes with us on our trips. Sebastian is so cute! Anyways, Poli Sci has super boring lectures, and hard, but interesting and short readings. Definitely my least favorite class. He's half Vietnamese, and is from America, but he met Vera, and they got married at the Old Town Square, which is super romantic, and they came to Prague to live here! He works in the Sociology department at Charles University, despite his degrees in Philosophy and Poli Sci. He's chill, but you can see that he gets a bit stressed when he's leading all of us by himself.

Culture: Contemporary Czech Culture, Art, Music, and Literature
This is taught by Blanka Maderova, who is awesome. She teaches, of course, but she is also in a rock band. And this class sounds like it's going to be awesome. Every week, we have 2 of each class, and something else (tomorrow we're watching a video, and next week we have a reflection on the trip we just took). Last week, we had one class, and then went to the Prague Castle. Part of the program cost includes all these private tours of all the cool stuff in the countries we visit, and the places we visit, so we got a private tour of the cathedral by Prague Castle last week. Just an example.

Housing
I share a room with a girl named Elizabeth. We actually have a really big room, but we have twin sized beds...the first time in years! Our whole apartment is furnished by Ikea, which, of course, I love. The other room in the apartment is shared by my other two roommates, Amanda and Kelly. Amanda is an International Student from Singapore, and Kelly is also from UW Seattle. Elizabeth is from the Bothell Campus. We have a huge hang out area, and a giant bathroom with an awesome bathtub and a shower. We have a tiny kitchen, however, which is crooked. But very modern. We're the only apartment with a microwave, a dishwasher, and a clothes dryer.

Trips
We just got back from Vienna, which was so beautiful, although after hearing the history of the place, it gave me a weird vibe. Vienna is very wealthy, and they kinda really flaunt it, with their fancy buildings, and the fact that they had so many designer boutiques just on the street. Which is weird, because they also gave off a very anti-Semitic vibe. They've always been pretty anti-Semetic, at one point, before the Holocaust, they just massacred the Jewish population, or tortured them. There were a ton of mass suicides at that time, because people didn't want to be tortured. After a lot of pressure, they finally built a monument to the Austrian Jews killed in the Holocaust. It took 40 years for them to build it. They also have 2 palaces there, which we visited, Schonbrunn, the summer castle of the Hapsburgs, and the normal castle. Schonbrunn is made to look like Versailles. Overall, it gave a weird feeling, like their whole society revolved around the wealth and beauty, but ignored the ugly parts of history. Their last Empress, Sisi, is idolized in their society, but at the same time, she seemed like she was crazy. She was very beautiful, and her husband loved her a lot, but she seemed to be very selfish. Some of my classmates said that if Sisi were in today's world, she'd be worse than Lindsay Lohan for craziness.

Communication:
So I have a skype number that's a US number, so you guys can call me from it. It doesn't cost me anything since I prepaid for it. Its (206) 923-9393, and I have a number for texting too: (425) 412-8417. If you want to talk to me, please remember that I'm 9 hours AHEAD of you guys, and I really only answer really late at night for you guys, or in the morning!

That's about it for now! I'm getting sick, I think, so yeah, I need to get to bed. And do homework :)