...

happy sunday :P

the fountain last night was AMAZING. the show we saw had the theme of "love songs from famous ballets"... it ended up being me, sarah, melissa, and matt who went to see it... melissa and sarah are two of my students, matt is a random guy who's working here in prague for the rest of the month before he goes to vancouver to teach starting in the fall... he's like 7 years older than me, but you wouldn't place him as in his 30s at all... he just doesn't want to grow up yet... and has a lot of fun hanging out with all us REU people. :P

at dinner (the four of us) ahead of time, we saw sam, arjun, jitka, and katja (sam and arjun are 2 more of my students, jitka (might not be spelled right) and katja are two slovenian students who were here for the same lectures as us this week) were walking by, and matt ran out to stop them and make them join us... it was an entertaining dinner crew

anonymous dinner quotes from last night:

"ohhh! i went there 3 times today... well, not exactly... i didn't find it the first two times, but i got there eventually"

"so did you all already eat?"
(one of the slovenians): "well, we had breakfast, and lunch, and another lunch, and... i think maybe another lunch after that... all the american boys do is eat"

"so what... we all want wives with one eye and clubbed feet?"

"oh my gosh! i love the rock! the rock is my friend. it's so great... the rock, the rock, the rock, i LOVE the rock!"

(none of them were me)

the caves today were fun... it ended up just being josef (one of the czech students who was in the states all summer), sam, melissa, me, and katja... with sarah being sick today, jitka being off doing whatever, and arjun and craig too lazy to leave the dorm today... (then again craig has spent the whole two weeks attentively attending the math lectures, but otherwise in the dorm, not joining anyone for any social/tourist/cultural activities whatsoever).

they're the biggest cave system in bohemia, but since they're in the middle of lots of countryside, and not near any large towns whatsoever, you really need to know czech to even find them on your own, so all the tours are in czech only. on the plus side, they did have handouts summarizing what the guide said in english for those of us who don't so much speak czech. i've been through several caves before, this one was not on the larger side, but it was nice... some pretty formations... some really cool fossils have been found there before... and the highest cavern used to be used as a mint for fake coins in the 15th century....at one point the guide turned out all the lights and (according to josef, who is shy and will translate when asked but is not one for telling things with dramatic flair) pointed out how dark it is, commenting that even if you lived in the cave for half a year, you still wouldn't see any better than we did right then (i couldn't even see my hand in front of my face)... then she (the guide) said we could sing a song if we wanted, and everyone, except for the 4 of us non-czechs started singing some children's song in the dark, while we just listened and were amused. :P go figured...

chilling for the afternoon, then sam's actually interested in going to the Prague Planetarium with me tonight, so i'm looking forward to it... they actually have a show with english translation at 7:30 tonight... if i spoke czech is would be $2, but to get the translation headphones, it costs $4 in all... still not bad at all compared to american prices... the show tonight is just "the night sky", so probably mostly things i've heard before, but still it will be cool to see a planetarium in another country and see how it compares. :)

2 more days in prague... time goes sooo quickly!

later dudes