Thursday, March 10, 2011

A Month or So

I have been the opposite of diligent about this blog.  Not to make excuses about it, but here's an excuse about it-- my goal for this blog was not to be simply a recount of what I've done, but a record of my impressions.  I also did not want to talk about people (unless necessary) because that's not terribly interesting unless you know the people.

I've been here about a month and half, which is completely nuts.  Time is just flying by.  By now I have moved on from first impressions, to deeper ones.  Here are some of the things that I truly did not expect about Prague.

The Hot Chocolate.  Whoa.  I have had the best hot chocolate of my life here.  I don't know what they do to it, and I'm not sure if I want to know, but it is great.  Anthony Bourdain did not cover that in his Prague episode of No Reservations.

The baked goods.  This is related to the previous, but I did not think there would be so many great pastries here.  And you can just pick a bakery at random and you'll get some really good stuff.  I have not experienced anything like that in the states.

Sodexo.  Sodexo, what are you doing here?  Tulane folks will know what I'm talking about.  Sodexo is the food service company that works at Tulane.  They apparently don't treat the employees at Tulane very well, as the students are always trying to organize the workers and stage protests.  I am always shocked to see the little Sodexo sticker that is outside so many of the establishments around here.

Pollution.  The car exhaust here is just unbearable.  There's not much more to say about it.  I think they could definitely benefit from a switch to renewable resources.

To sum it up, and end on a positive note, I am loving it here.  I'm sad it's moving so quickly.

I'll be in Vienna this weekend.  Expect a massive post about traveling sometime in the future.