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| My room at Kate's. |
I'm doing a homestay while in Prague, and Kate, the woman I'm staying with, has been very friendly and helpful. She helped me figure out the new tram lines in the city and I can now get back and forth across the many, many cobblestones (almost) like a native.
After some much needed travel-recovery sleep, I decided to explore the Old Town of Prague on my first day. I saw the Jan Hus memorial, the Church of St. Nicolas, and Prague's famous Astronomical Clock, just to name a few.
Other than seeing the typical tourist sites and aquainting myself with this great city, I also managed to go to some great museums. I went to Prague's Musueum of Decorative Art, an Alfons Mucha exhibit (a famous Czech artist), and the National Gallery.
While I made my way through the Gallery, I made a friend there named Marek, a roughly 80-year-old museum caretaker. Marek didn't speak English, but even though I couldn't talk to him I could tell he has a lot of fun at his job. The Gallery was pretty empty when I was there, so maybe he was just bored, but he liked to turn the lights off on unsuspecting musueum goers, along with other goofy tricks. He saw someone sketching a statue and motioned for them to draw it from the back, in order to capture the piece's finer assets, of course. Marek also saw me in a room of statues and decided to imitate each one's facial expressions for my benefit. All of Marek's exploits were accompanied by his wheezy laugh. It was so great to see someone who knew the art they were around so well and really have fun with it.
I'm loving Prague so far and I can't wait to see more of it!
