So Much Stuff, So Little Time!

You ever look at your calendar and say, "Huh...I don't have much going on this week..." and then you actually begin the week and you realize you were wrong? Well, that would be what happened this last week. While classes were scarce, they were quickly replaced by trips, parties, and tours.

This is the part of the post where I will apologize for not updating about all of this before and for posting so many pictures. But what is a post without pictures. And while it would be easier on you, my lovely readers, updating over the course of last week...just wasn't possible. But, now you get to see everything that I've been up to!

Let us begin on Tuesday. This is the normal day that we have script and directing with Pavel Marek, Camera Works with Gahut and Screenwriting with Pavel Jech. With Pavel Marek and Pavel Jech in the States for various reasons, that meant that we only met with Gahut. So, what better way to spend a Tuesday with only one class than by heading over to Barrandov Studios to watch our lighting exercise go through Telecine Transfer. It was a long class, but we got to see all of the footage that we shot and how it all turned out. It was an exciting day as I have never need to have film developed before. I mean, it could have been really bad. Luckily though, everything came out exposed properly. Guess that means we learned something!

Wednesday was another one of those days where the Czech Republic decides you are going to have a holiday and thus limits what classes you have. For us that meant none. So, Kris and myself boarded a train at 5:57am and headed to Vienna, Austria to see the sights.

The day started with a trip to one of the many cathedrals, though I can't remember which one, and then slowly moved into seeing this like Parliament, the city hall and of course both palaces. (I didn't come to Europe to just ignore the castles...I'm only scouting them out for the places that one day I'll live in...). We caught lunch at the Naschmarket, where we were surprised to find an alarming number of Vietnamese places to eat. But, this didn't really matter. We got soup from one of them and it was delicious!

We also took a stop to the Museum Quarter where we saw the Edvard Munch exhibit inside the Leopold Museum. It was absolutely fabulous. And the work was so perfectly suited to the Halloween mood that I had been in that it was just perfect. I'm really glad that we took the time to stop into this gallery and look. It would have been a shame to miss it.

The plan we laid out went pretty well. We only had one major mishap along the way and that was trying to find the Cafe Demel. We eventually did find it after circling the same area for about 30 minutes, but that was all part of the fun! Once we did find it, we got "soccer cake". (I know that's not how it is spelled, but that's how I pronounced it...just go with it...). And after finding the cake, we headed back toward the train station, but not without a stop for coffee and hot chocolate along the way. And then it was back on the train to head back to Prague and prepare for Thursday morning's classes.

Below are some of the pictures that I took when in Vienna!
They are Kris finding our way via map (the only reason we knew where we were headed...), my lunch at the Naschmarket, the Leopold Museum, the courtyard for one of the palaces and the main cathedral.

Thursday was a rather normal day...I don't really need to elaborate much here. It was Acting class, then Film Language and then my History and Culture in the Czech Lands class. The only thing that made this day off was the fact that our schedule was all messed and we had to cut our Acting Studio short.

Friday was a day of adventure once again. This time to the Jewish Quarter of Prague! We met Kim and David around 10:50am for a tour, which lasted until about 3pm. While I love going on tours...I sometimes find that 4 hours can be a little excessive. But, I learned a whole lot and I got to see some awesome sites. Highlights of this tour for me consisted of the Jewish Cemetery, the Spanish Synagogue, and walking around the outside of the Old-New Synagogue. But, we saw a whole lot more than this. We saw the entire Jewish Museum, which consists of four buildings or so and not just one.

Also, I have to mention it because it was pretty amusing. But, as we were on the tour, we managed to pick up some Israeli tourists that followed us around and kept asking David questions. While they were entirely harmless, it was just odd that people decided to follow us through the different places that we went.

Once the tour was finished, I came back to the apartment to find that the Halloween box that my mother sent me had in fact arrived and was at the reception desk. So, I hurried down there to pick it up.

After some pizza with Kris, Lisa and Rebecca, we came back to the apartment and carved the pumpkin that I bought, made pumpkin seeds and started decorating the apartment for Saturday's festivities. It was so much fun and made me happy to see that I was going to get my Halloween after all.

Halloween came in rather quietly this year. I started the morning unhappy and unsure that I even wanted to have a party. I wanted to be back home where all of my friends were...and all of my costumes and make-up were...where celebrating Halloween was easier. Add to that the fact that I was still looking for a Halloween costume, and you end up with one unhappy, semi-depressed kind of Becky. Not the kind you really want to be around.

I had determined that I needed to find a costume by no later than 2pm, so that I could make sure everything was set up for the party at the apartment. So, when 2pm approached, I settled for being a butterfly. It wasn't my first choice in costume, but it was the cheapest and easiest thing I could think of. (Apparently, kids in this country do dress up, but they are only Vampires and other odd things. I couldn't find a pair of cat ears or a witch's hat to save my life.)

Luckily, my unhappy mood wore off when people started arriving and it was a good time. Occasionally, the Halloween homesickness would rear its head at the party, but I did my best to shrug it off and remind myself that I was celebrating my favorite holiday in a city where it isn't customary to celebrate. Overall, good party.

Below are some of the pictures from the party!








They are me carving my huge pumpkin, Lisa and Kris making pumpkin seeds the night before the party, Shayna's friends along with Lisa and Rebecca gathered around the counter, Drew, Jacob and Shayna hanging out, Jacob and Steph after they opened the wine on a tree, Kris and me in costume (I'm a butterfly. She's a peeping Tom.), Steph, Shayna and Steph as a paparazzi, Michael Jackson, and Lady Gaga respectively, the Jewish Cemetery cake, and a group shot of everyone.

When I woke up Sunday morning, I expected to clean up my messy kitchen before heading out to Kutna Hora. BUT, the "cleaning fairy" aka Tarek had already cleaned up the mess and pretty much told me to go back to bed. I sort of took the advice and got ready to leave for Kutna Hora.

My original intention was to see the bone church. I really didn't care about the rest of the town and had no interest, but after being there my opinion of Kutna Hora has changed. The bone church was pretty awesome and creepy. Perfect for the day after Halloween, but the rest of the town was cool as well.

It was a very sleepy town...and I mean sleepy. Seeing people on the street was pretty rare. But, the history of the town was rather interesting. We saw the town well, and a whole lot of cathedrals and we even took a tour of the silver mines. This tour actually took me by surprise because I didn't realize we were actually going down 35m into the mines. I also didn't realize that we had to dress like the miners to go down in the mine. It was a lot of fun though and something I wouldn't have done without the tour. I'm extremely glad that I did more than look at a bone church.

Pictures from Kutna Hora below!



These pictures are of a portion of the bone church, a street in Kutna Hora, the mine we went down into, and all of us in our mining gear!

After a long day we headed back to Prague on a very crowded and late train, but we made it! And I crashed once I got home. It was a long weekend, but a good one.

And this leads us to yesterday...Monday. Normal classes in the morning...production meeting with production managers in the evening. I think they went pretty well. The story Kris and I have is fairly simple and really the only problem is that it is getting cold here and we are shooting outside. Looks like our actors will be in very warm clothes and drinking lots of warm stuff when not on camera.

So...that's it! You all are now entirely caught up with where the FAMU kids and myself stand at this point in time. More developments I'm sure will come. So, don't touch the mouse!