It's been awhile...

Apologies for the lack of posting in the past few weeks, i've been suuuper busy and the places i've been have really shitty internet connections or none at all. Well anyway, that's my alibi so i'll just cut to the chase.
Havn't really been doing anything too exciting, just getting more acquanited with the city, finding new restaurants that aren't czech (so sick of the food), finding new bars and clubs and such. Oh, one interesting thing i've learned is that instead of squirrels, the Czechs have hedgehogs as their most visible suburban rodent. I was hanging out on a street corner drinking wine with these two girls i met when i noticed all these hedgehogs running on the sidewalks and streets, surreal to say the least. This past weekend was great so i'll break it down for ya.

Thursday May 28
Got up early Thursday morning and took a bus to an old Soviet labor camp where the communists made political opponents work themselves to death in uranium mines. After a tour of the camp we rode to a small medieval town called Cesky Krumlov which is located in the southern Czech Republic near the Austrian border in what used to be called the Sudetenland (WWII buffs will know what i'm talking about). The first thing we did when we got off the bus was walk up this giant hill to our accomadations, then walk right back down again because it was the wrong hill. Walked up another hill where we were assigned different houses to stay in for the weekend. Everyone's houses were awesome two-story places with balconies right off their bedrooms that had views of the city. We get to the top of the hill and settle into our house, which was THE WORST. If you think American decoration in the 70s-80s was bad, you should see what it looked like in a former communist country. GOOD GOD.
Our view was of a woodpile and a clothing line, but I chose not to complain after having seen the concentration and labor camps. We were all exhausted but of course we had to go out that night, so we went to a tourists mixed-drink bar where we proceeded to buy each the gayest drinks possible (think pina coladas, swimming pools, daquiris and such).

Friday May 29
Got up early for a field trip for my social work class to a drug rehabilitation center which I expexted to be a total downer, but it ended up being a really enlightening visit. the rehab center is on the grounds of an old palace/mansion type place with over 150 acres of surrounding undeveloped property that is available to the patients. Interestingly enough, the czech Republic considers cigarettes to be the main gateway drug rather than marijuana, which is what our government thinks. I'd almost be willing to become a junkie if it meant I could stay there awhile for free, seriously, it was that nice. After that we toured the giant old castle in town which was ok, but me and another guy (Morgan) had way more fun making wisecracks about the terrible decorating and art. After that we toured a medieval theater and learned how they used to change the stage scenery and did sound effects, which was really cool and way more complicated then I had expected. Finished up with the tour, then went back to our house and chilled there for awhile to prepare ourselves for the mandatory Friday night revelry. Me and Morgan (previously mentioned) decided to leave the whole crew to their own devices and check out a hostel bar where we hoped maybe meet up with some locals or fellow foreign travelers. As soon as we walk into the bar we notice our friend Tom sitting with 3 girls, so we immediately go sit with them, as the hard part has already been taken care of. Hung out there for awhile until we decided for some reason that we just had to go to a club, I guess we thought we hadn’t been spending enough money or something. So we go to this club which was pretty much god awful except for the abundance of non-english speaking hot girls that filled it. I ended up talking to one of the girls that Tom had met at the previous bar all night, she was 22 and kept giving me shit about being younger, so I kept giving her shit about people older but everything ended up working out just fine. I was abandoned by Morgan so that I could hang out with the 22 year old. Ended up walking back super late at night and got really lost for about an hour until I finally found my way back.

Saturday May 30
Supposed to go on a hike of the Sudetenland but I ended up oversleeping, along with a few others so we decided to have a chill day in town and seek out some green vegetables as we had been suffering a terrible deficit in our diets. Seriously, the Czechs must’ve read the food pyramid upside-down. We went to a cool art museum with an exhibition of soviet era propaganda posters and discovered a few new artists that I need to look into. After that we had some kickass vegan food and had the best service since I’ve been here, we tipped accordingly. The weather was awful so we went back to the house for awhile, when the rain stopped I walked up on this big grassy hill covered in wildflowers and watched a cloud eat a mountain, the picture will show you what I mean. That night we went out to the hostel bar again, ended up chilling with some really drunk girl that insisted we call her Duchess Leah of Prague 3, I think…