Prague First Week (continued)

After two beers, one light and one dark, we were both feeling pretty good. We were full and happy. I'd never had Czech food in a Czech restaurant. I learned that there are some unhealthy things in the Czech republic. My list of unhealthy things now had two items, beer and fried cheese.
We went back to the dorm, and ran into some other Union students. The other two Electrical Engineers were going out with their buddies. We made plans to meet later. It was quite an adventure. Every city I've been to looks completely different at night. The neighborhood of the dorm is simply empty, but the downtown area is really magnificent at night. There are lots of people, and the lighting is wonderful. The type of people changes too; instead of tourists shopping, it's people enjoying drinks outside, and going to hang out with their friends or going to a bar. I had never been to the city center before, so going there was kind of like going into a maze. I didn't recognize anything, and since it was night, I couldn't even guess at what direction we were going. It's like when you get in a cab in a new city, and the driver just goes. When we got off the train, Vojtech told me that we were at the biggest square in Prague, or maybe it was the longest square. There are two squares in Prague that I went to. So we walked down along this square, then down some small streets and finally found the pub that we were looking for. It had green lettering above the entrance. We walked into the ground floor, which was a small bar, and then past this, down some stairs into the basement. The basement was a huge beer hall, equipped with a huge bar, and giant wooden tables. They served the famous Pilzner, in half litre mugs. Vojtech had mentioned that you have to pay for everything, but I was kind of hungry and I thought it was so nice that there were pretzels on the table. So I had to pay about a dollar for a really bad pretzel. They have them on the table for people like me. Here, I met Dan, Nate, and their buddies. We drank a few beers and talked loudly. The inside of the place was really neat. The ceilings were high, the barmen were large, and there was a lot of copper near the bar. We decided to play pool in some place I'd never been before. However, we would first go to another bar.
We went to a place that I learned was known for having underage people. It was three Union guys, Nate, Dan, and me, with three Czech guys, Vojtech, George, and another friend, George. One George is very tall, and when I saw him 2 weeks ago, had blue hair. The other George I haven't seen since. However, these were not their real names, but for the sake of our American tongues, and ears, they were George. If you asked me now to retrace my steps, I wouldn't be able to tell you at all. I was truly a sheep following the herd. We were in a fairly bright place, mabye one of the major squares. From there we we about a block or two to a darker street, with crumbling and graffitied walls. The place was empty on the first floor. There was a bar, where we each got a beer. There was a spiral staircase to the basement, from which a lot of noise was coming. As we walked down the stairs, we looked to the source of the commotion, which was a large table of about 15 young people. I think each one of us paused a moment to look at them. The basement was big enough to fit about 4 tables, with some walking room in the middle. The big group took up 2 tables opposite from where we sat. I think there was either another bar there, or just a lady to look after the basement, but I wasn't really paying attention to that corner of the room. We talked and had a nice time. This was where I heard that the legal age is much lower in the Czech Republic, than in the USA. These other people were probably school kids, who shouldn't have been out late drinking beer in some pub. I think they left the pub at about 11, because it was probably their bedtimes.
We left shortly after to play pool.
The pool place was gigantic. It was also down an alley, and was a little scary from the outside. This place used to be a gymnasium of some sort, and is now a pool hall, with bowling, table tennis, and (of course) a bar. Some of us got another beer, I think all the Americans did. We played Americans against Czechs, and we lost. The Czechs and the Americans split up and went to their respective homes. Now that I'm writing this, I don't remember how we got home, but I think it was using the metro. Vojtech lives about 45 minutes from my dorm, in the opposite direction, and I don't think the other Czechs lived in the same direction either. So now I'm curious as to how we managed to get back. Well, since it's really easy by metro we probably did that.

Pool hall!

Prague First Week

9/10/09

I'm writing this now about two weeks late. It's Wednesday around noon, and I'm supposed to go to the gym today. Luckily that's my only plan for the whole day. I now have my class schedule, and had one class yesterday called Photovoltaics; it's about solar cells and solar panels. We got a high level overview of all the things that need to be factored into designing a solar plant. Meaning everything related to the sun, ie. the path of the sun during the day, the path of the sun over the course of the year, the incoming power in the radiation, etc. We had a laboratory session, which was really fun. The building with the laboratory has a really large space in the middle, sliced into smaller rooms, and is partially ringed by a hallway. This hallway was actually only a U, and our room was at the top of the U. We rang a doorbell, which seemed to have the right number, except for the letter a at the end. A guy came to the door, and was extremely unhelpful. The door said 32 on it, but we had to go to 32a. He said there was no class here. To which we responded, "fine, where is 32a." He sidestepped this question and said flatly, "surely your class is not here." So we left in a huff, and walked all the way around the U to the other side of the room. There was a door that said 32a, and we could see that guy sitting at the other side of the room. I was very peeved at that man when our professor came, and let us into the lab room.

There were many doors in the left wall, that led to the labs. Turns out the "walls" between the various labs were less than 6 feet tall, so they weren't really rooms. The lab was only wide enough for a lab bench and sitting space, so if someone wanted to get by, we had to scoot in. It was quite fun. We learned about the typical solar cell's voltage current characteristic, and about what factors affect it. Turns out that an increase in temperature decreases a cell's efficiency. So maybe there is more sun in the desert, but the solar panels won't not run as efficiently. A typical rating is 0.4% efficiency per degree kelvin. Room temperature is 20 degrees centigrade, but his example was a cell at 80 degrees centigrade, meaning a 24% decrease in efficiency, I think. I'm sure we'll learn about this in more detail later. My trip to Prague was a lot more interesting.

I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Thankfully, my roommate had an alarm that worked pretty well. Maybe his cell phone. It would talk to you in a quiet, but building, high pitched voice that said, "good morning." Kind of a strange thing to wake up to, but it worked. After checking in, I waited in the terminal, and could see a plane out the window that seemed like it was ours, mainly because the hallway that all the other passengers were heading down, went towards a plane. I was grateful that soon I would be sitting. I gave them my ticket and walked down the hall toward the plane, but the end was blocked off, and I was forced down a flight of stairs, and onto a bus. My heart skipped a beat, and the image of my dad ordering tickets came into my head. I could see him choosing the very cheapest tickets, but somehow not noticing the travel time, "15 hours by bus." Then I thought that maybe the plane had been canceled, and they were just going to drive us by bus. Luckily, it was just the bus to the plane, but I still had to stand, and wait for the rest of the passengers. I felt so cheated; this plane was sitting right there waiting for us, and they had waved it in front of our faces and then packed us all into a bus instead. The bus took us to the plane and the plane took us to Prague.

Thankfully there were no customs this time, so I got my bag quickly, and met my buddy outside. We got on a bus that took us along an unknown street. It was a little hilly, and quite barren. It turns out that this bus actually went right to the school. I've learned that there is a bus circle here, and that many people come through this area on their way to wherever. This is also the last stop on one of the subway lines. People take the train here and then take a bus or tram out of the city. There are constantly people with luggage waiting for the bus, or changing to another mode of transportation.

My buddy, whose name I can't type out in Czech, took me to fill out some paperwork for housing. He took me to the bank to take out 8,000 Czech crowns, which is about 500 dollars. 5,000 of this was a security deposit for housing, so I'll get some of it back. Then there were a bunch of other things I had to buy and wait in line for. The photos I brought were too big, so we had to go to the photo booth in the train station. The booth had instructions in English, but said them all really loudly, to my embarrassment. Then we didn't have any change so my buddy had to go buy a stick of gum. While I was waiting outside the booth, some lady came up in front of me, faced the wall, and I think talked to herself. It was kind of strange. The photos came out, but my blue/green, yellow hair, looked a little different in the pictures. I then got 4 new pieces of identification: a resident card for the building, an international student club card, an id for the transit system, and a student id for the school. That's in addition to my international student id card, college id card, state id card, and passport. Oh and my debit card has a picture of me on it too. I arrived at around noon, and we finished all this necessary stuff at around 4pm. My buddy, Voitah as it's pronounced, took me to the nearest food place.

The place we went is right on campus, and the downstairs felt really dated. This is about when I realized that I wouldn't be able to understand, or even guess at, anything. Everything was in Czech, but there were pictures. My buddy told me he was getting a famous Czech dish, "frightened cheese." This really confused me, but after some discussion we figured out that it was really, fried cheese. Something like a giant mozzarella stick, but when I asked what kind of cheese, the response was "brick cheese."

Here is a picture of Vojtech (my buddy), and Demarcus, on Friday eating some yummy gyros.