my birthday and Steph's visit!

Hey!  Sorry it's been so long since my last post.  I last checked in a few days before my birthday.  I had a GREAT birthday!  Wednesday night we had a bunch of people over at our apartment for a big birthday celebration/pre game.  A lot of my guy friends were leaving Thursday morning for the weekend but all made a point to stop by and hang out for a bit even though they weren't going out.  It was very nice.  My roomies and I hit the town in celebration.  It was a very fun night.  Thursday we went to a Czech hockey game.  Hockey is a HUGE sport here.  CEA planned the trip for us and there were about 40 kids from my program at the game.  It was a quarterfinals playoff game.  We had some pivo (beer) and cheered on the czech team.  Sadly, they lost in a shootout in double overtime.  Despite the loss the game was a lot of fun.  

Thursday night I went to dinner with my roommates and then to rap night at Radost.  We danced on stage for a while, met some random people who were in Prague on spring break from other programs and cities, schmoozed with the bartender until he gave us free birthday shots etc.  It was truly a great night (and yes I remember it!)

The weekend started off great and only got better as Steph Meyer and friends came on Friday!  A couple of girls studying in Prague and I met Steph and her friends at the airport.  It was pretty much a scene out of a movie when they got off the plane and we were standing with signs yelling and screaming.  The people in the airport were probably annoyed by our Americanness but oh well....you only live once!  We took the girls to Bohemian Bagel (an American style bagel/ sandwich restaurant) for lunch, explored the city, had a few beers, and headed out to dinner.  After a very late dinner, we didn't finish eating until about 1am, we went to 5 story club.  It was quite an experience!  We hit all of the floors, dancing and exploring on each one.  I somehow convinced everyone to dance on stage and have great pictures of all of us.  Steph and two of her friends, Dara, and Effie slept over that night and we had a huge sleepover/slumber party.  Believe it or not, this was the first time Steph and I have ever really slept in the same room...another thing for us to cross off the Steph and Sheridan list!

Saturday we hit up the Prague Castle, Old Town Square, the Charles Bridge, and the Easter festival.  Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square, and some other places have been taken over by the Easter Festival.  There are stands everywhere with every type of food: grilled meats, vegies, corn, crepes, waffle cakes, beer, chocolate covered fruit, skewers, fresh cooked/ roasted nuts, and the list goes on...we pretty much ate our way around for a while before settling into food coma.  Saturday night Steph and some of her friends and I met up with my roommates at one of our favorite cafes by my house for dinner.  After we went to beer factory.  Beer factory is this neat underground bar where each table has its own tap.  You tap your own beer and the machine keeps a tab.  There's also a cool contraption on the table that lets you wash your glasses.  Beer factory was playing crazy old music that you just had to sing and dance to when it came on.  In true fashion we danced/ made fun of how some of the Europeans were dancing and pretty much went nuts.  There were about 15 of us there; we all looked liked idiots and completely loved every second of it.

Sunday morning we went to Radost for brunch.  It was one of the best meals I've had since I've been here.  It was honestly sooo good.  The restaurant is also very trendy.  All the seats are couches and big loungy chairs.  It's very retro and swanky.  I split from the group for a bit to go home and write a paper and do some work.  Steph and some of her friends went to the Jewish Quarter and walked around the festival a bit more.  We all met up later in the afternoon.  Steph and her roommate in Florence, Miriam spent the night at my place. We sat up talking for hours.  Miriam is from Deerfield and went to Camp Beber.  We know all of the same people.  It's a crazy small world.  We lost track of time and didn't go to bed for hours later.  

Monday morning I took Steph and friends to breakfast at Bohemian (they wanted American food one last time before they went back to eating all Italian) before they left for the airport. 

It was honestly a great weekend.  I'm so happy Steph was able to come and hang out and help me celebrate my birthday!  (speaking of she brought the most beautiful bracelet for my birthday.  it was the nicest thing!)  It's very cool to be able to travel with friends from home and meet up in foreign countries.  We took tons of pictures and can't wait to send them to the Camp Chi alumni network.  Jamie and Brad will laugh when they see Steph and Sheridan traveling the world together, though I don't think they'll be at all surprised.

This is long so I'm going to split this into a few different posts.  Pics to come later.