So, before this entry begins, I have photos:

http://slc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012698&id=28601169

Last weekend I was able to paddleboat down the Vltava river with Meghan from SLC, see a free performance by a Turkish band with Niko from the Bay Area while eating 25-crown (that's about a dollar) palačinky, and attend a Czech Catholic Sunday service. I was also able to experience the joys of the Czech pasttime of gathering houby (mushrooms) with my host family on a lovely Sunday in the forest. They showed me which kind of houby are good to eat, the ones that are poisonous, and that ones that just aren't tasty. The ideal fresh houby are moist and have a yellow, smooth underside. Ones with polka dots are automatically bad. We brought them back to the apartment and cooked them in a delicious sauce and ate them with knedliký (flour dumplings). I also got to drink a lot of burčák, the first pressing of grapes from Moravia to be made into wine. It's yellow and resembles egg liqueur. It's not bad, but real wine is better, to be honest.

We've been learning about Communist sanctioned and non-sanctioned art as of late. We watched a movie about censorship (it was banned back in the day) and watched a Communist-era newsreel and listened to Communist-sanctioned pop music from the 80's. On Monday we discussed Kafka's book America at a café, and I hadmy first Czech language test (first test I've taken since high school--yay Sarah Lawrence!) and I think it went okay. I also acquired Harry Potter in Czech. I collect Harry Potter in different languages and now besides Czech, I have it in French, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Hebrew, and Hungarian. Today a famous performance artist named Tomaš Ruller came into class today and showed us examples of his art and in a few hours we're going to Cafe Imperial and then to see a play by a Slovak group. A strange thing about Cafe Imperial, apparently, is that they keep a bowl of stale donuts at the counter and you can pay 1000 crowns to throw the donuts at fellow customers. It's a strange country.

On Friday I'm leaving for the week because all of us are getting sent around the country for regional stays. I'll be with one other girl and we'll be in Slavonice, a Sudetenland village right on the Austrian border. Then on next Thursday we meet up with the group in Ceske Budejoviče, where we'll travel again to Ceský Krumlov to see the famous castle and the St. Wenceslas Fair and finally get back to Prague on Saturday. More to come on all that.

Here are the things I miss the most about the United States:
-FRUIT. Specifically fresh avocados. I'd give anything for a Haas avocado.
-DIVERSITY IN ALL WAYS. It's a very homogenous country, and that's hard to adjust to. There's still a strong sense of xenophobia and racism.
-THE OCEAN. Enough said.
-SMILING. People don't smile at you in the streets. I feel awkward sometimes when I smile now.