First week has come and gone!

Sometimes it's hard to believe how quickly a week can come and go!

This week has been amazing. Let me try to re-cap all that has happened.

Of course, I've had more classes. Mark continues to be a wonderful workshop leader and I feel like, hopefully, a mentor that I can keep in touch with. Tomas continues to be a fascinating research of Jewish and Czech history, in part because of an impressive ability to tell the story of history in a way that we all can grasp the big picture.

In addition to our normal classes, we've started our lectures. One was the Czech Lit. professor, who basically talked non-stop for an hour and half, barely breathing, and was hilarious. Did I mention he was wearing a Monty Python t-shirt? Then Gerald Costanzo talked about the history of publishing and where it's going. Which totally got me excited! I even went to talk to him about how I want to study New Media after the lecture and, I gotta admit, it was probably the most emphatic response I've gotten from a creative writer.

We also had the first two nights of readings. The first was an Irish ex-pat who lives here in Prague who was charming. It was a little bizarre to hear him read Czech in an Irish accent but he had one of the most memorable lines of the night where, in a poem, he recounted how his son once punched him in the balls and said it was "the Batman way," how great of a writing moment is that? Then a playwright from MTSU read and she was also very good.

Then Thursday night was amazing, Mark read with Stu Dybek (who is now pronouncing his name closer to Dybbuk-this became a topic of conversation). Both are amazing talents and you could tell everyone was really in awe.

And finally the student reading was last night. And I got to act! I was asked by Adam Pasen, one of the playwrights, to be a part of his play. I have to admit, I miss acting. I think it was obvious because I had so much fun, people were coming up to me all night complimenting me. So, of course, I had to thank Adam for my Prague Theatrical debut :)

Between all this class-work, I promise I've been seeing the city too! Daniel and I have become fond of just walking around at dinner time until we find a random place whose prices aren't too bad and just stopping there. It's led to some really fabulous evening walks that have allowed us just to take in the city and I can't stop repeating just how beautiful it is!

I mean, seriously. There will probably be about a hundred pictures of the area around the river by the time I'm down, but it doesn't stop being pretty.

We also went to the Kafka Museum which was a haunting experience. The museum is designed in a way to envelop your senses. With different music and sounds as well as projected images and tactile displays, it was a really interesting way to learn about such a monumental figure in modern literature. Especially after this, I feel that Daniel and I are seriously considering learning German together. There's just so much interesting German texts and philosophy, Kafka's is just one more push in that direction.

There's also been some of the most fascinating street-art here! Which has kinda been a hobby-study of mine for awhile but learning about Kafka helps me look at the art here differently. This country has such a strong sense of history but it's equally mixed with it's self-mytholigizing.

Anyhow, we got a new battery charger so there will be more pictures. Make sure to look on facebook.

xoxo