Well, I'm back from Prague. Actually, I've been back for a while and I'm just now getting to updating. The trip was pretty awesome, even though we ended up spending only one day actually in Prague. Most of our time was actually spent in Zadsta, a small town about two hours outside of Prague. Skiing was actually quite a large part of the trip, with us spending three or four of our seven days on the slopes. Most of my time was spent figuring out how to ski, and by the last day I had a pretty good grip on the concept, making the entire trip about a week too short. We slept in two pensions (homes whose lower levels are used as small hotels) and it snowed every day. I felt strangly at home there on the mountain. It had a great feeling of solitude and calm which was really refreshing. Another refreshing aspect was the presence of a thriving artistic community, something that is lacking in the German culture.
Every evening after a long day of skiing or other forms of adventuring, Mick, Krista, Ploy, Andrea, Anna and I all sat down in one of the rooms and would talk about nothing until maybe two in the morning. This was due to the suggestion of Mick, who after the first evening of everyone watching poorly-translated German TV, decided it would be a lot more fun if we restricted TV to the daylight hours, during which we were mostly out of the house anyway. It turned out to be a great suggestion, and we all got to know one another very well. The other five boys stayed in the other pension, but the setup still worked out well.
On our tour of Prague we visited most of the major tourist sites, of which I took about 250 pictures (only the best of which I will be posting here). We also visited two Glass Blowing studios, which was quite interesting. A few of us took part, but at that moment I was content just to watch. Its pretty amazing what they do and how confident they are working with exceedingly hot liquid glass.
After I returned, I spent one more night at Krista's place near Berlin (I had spent one on the way over as well). We watched Wall-E and talked with her host parents. I like the family- they're quite welcoming and relaxed. Since then I went to a Jahrgangfeier, which is something like an end-of-semester party. This was directly after yet another three-hour-long judo practice, so I was already pretty hopped up on adreniline and so on. Turned out to be a pretty wicked party.
I also went to the movies that weekend, for the first time since I've been here, with Svenja, a girl from my judo club and one of the better Christians I've met while I've been here. We talked and ate and saw Benjamin Button, which is a good film but just a little too long. Philipp is back home as well, but only for about a week. He's going to take a three-week long class/test to get his Jagdschein (hunting liscence). Other than that everything is pretty much normal over here. I finally finished the Judo animation, and you can view it at http://www.staderjudoka.de/, but I'm not sure if its up yet. Mirko's been pretty busy lately and I don't know if he's had time to get it set up.
I hope everythings been going as well over there as it has here. My parents bought tickets to come visit me over Easter Break just recently, so I should be getting a pretty detailed report fairly soon. I've kinda dropped off on a few good habits I should probably get started up again (i.e. blog, drawing, running) so I'm hoping you'll be getting a more steady stream of posts soon, but I'm not making any promisses. Thanks for the support, you guys. Miss you all tons.
Prague
Mick, Krista, Ploy and I
Ploy and Krista
Astronomical Clock
St. Vitus Cathedral
-Elliot P.
