Otto Fest!!!!

Yesterday we took a bus to Otto's, our art history professor's, small village. They were having a huge celebration because they had just played the neighboring village in futbol. Even though they were slaughter at the game, they still partied. There was a lot of different types of music playing, but the best part was when DJ Satan (that's Otto's stage name) mixed it up. Also, David and Iram, two of the guys from our program joined in!! The clip above shows the chaos that they thought was music. It was really funny!!!

The best part of the night was when Otto asked us to go to the after party. He took us to the village library, which also serves as the village bar where the fridge with packed with pivo!! Otto played some tunes and everybody danced around. The bus couldn't take us back to Prague until 5:25 the following morning, so when we got tired, we camped out in Otto's back yard. The whole experience was so surreal. I'm glad that was how I spent my last Saturday night in Prague.

Yokki!!!

Yesterday I met Yokki. She is the topic for my photo story. Yokki is a freelance photographer here in Prague. She moved to prague from Japan a little over a year ago to come to school here. Her boyfriend is also a photography, with a little more fame. Her boyfriend, Daniel, just released his third photo book. But I love Yokki. She let me assist her in her darkroom. That was fun because since I have only known how to shoot digital, I had never been in a dark room before. She was so sweet. I also went to work with her yesterday to take some photos there as well. She works as a secretary, but her passion is photography. She really inspired me to take pictures for myself. I feel blessed to have met a friend here in Prague. She has this thing with her friend back in Japan where they send each other this notebook back and forth. Every time they add photos with poems and stories before they send it off. I plan on starting the same idea with her when I get back to the states.

Working...

This week is going to be pretty dull...I have my final paper due next Monday for Art History and two photo projects also due Monday. Today I tripped going up the stairs in the metro and I dropped my camera. My lens is barely hanging on by a little piece of plastic. I can still shoot, but I don't know how long it's going to last. As you can tell, things aren't looking too bright right now. I am still trying to make the best of things. This is my last couple of days in Prague...I need to keep my hopes up...

Vysehrad, Vltava, and more!

Almost everyone went traveling to other countries this weekend, but I decided to stay in Prague and save my money...Here is my weekend laid out...

Friday 20 June 2008:
On Friday, I rested in the morning, then I took the tram to Vyšehrad and walked around. The weather was ideal for shooting pictures. Vyšehrad is a hill that has the cathedral of St. Peter and Paul, a cemetery where Czech heroes are buried, a garden...It was beautiful!! It had a beautiful view too!! After that, I walked down by Vltava River and walked all the way back to the Staromestska metro stop.
In the evening, Kate and I researched this place called the Secret Lounge, so we got a bunch of people together, and walked to the secret lounge, only to find out that is actually on of the most popular clubs in Prague. So we went to Château, another club, instead. It was ok, but I do have to say that I think I'm done with the whole Club Europe scene...

Saturday 21 June 2008:
Again, Kate and I went to the Flea Market. It was a good day at the flea market. Then we came back to the room and rested. At the later afternoon, Kate, Emilio, and I rented a boat on Vltava river. We rowed all the way around Children's Island. After that, we went to eat at The Pub, walked around, then came back to the dorm.


Sunday 22 June 2008:
Kate, Emilio, and I went to English mass at St. Thomas. I really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we walked up to the Prague Castle, were we had a little picnic in the garden, a yoga session, and just chilled. After a while, we went to get some ice cream. Today was the hottest day in Prague since we've been here. It was in the 90's . When we came back to the room, I showered and took a 5 hour nap.

Kutna Hora and Cubism

On Wednesday June 18, 2008, we took another day trip. This time we went to the little town of Kutna Hora. We only had a couple of hours there, but the first thing we did was go see the "bone church" of Kutna Hora. The story is that there was a small cemetery that everyone wanted to be buried in because dirt from the Crusades was sprinkled over the land. People believed that the cemetery was holy. So what they did was every couple of years dig up the old bodies to make room for the new ones. They then used the bones to decorate the crypt. There was this really elaborate chandelier that was made using every bone in the body. After that, we just roamed around the town. I went to check out the church, but you had to pay to get in. So my friend Kelly and I went walking down the streets. We saw a house that had a cherry tree and chickens running around. Kelly wanted to jump the fence and play with the chickens...I thought we were going to get shot or put in jail, so I just watched. She was unsuccessful, which made me relieved! The train ride to and from Kutna Hora was really beautiful because it was the Czech country side.


That evening a bunch of us went out to Kross Klub. It was really cool!! They had all of these levels with different types of music in each level. Also, the decorations were all macinical parts...it's really hard to explain, but if you ever get a chance to come to Prague, go to Kross Klub!!

On Thursday June 19, 2008, I met with Dennis, my photo prof, to go over some of my photos. Then I hung around and waited for Art History to start. For our weekly Thursday Excursion, we went to The House of the Black Madonna, which is a building, cafe, and musuem that's all about the Cubism movement. First we stopped at the cafe, which, by the way, is the only Cubist cafe in the world. I had this chocolate cake with baked apples cooking inside. It was AMAZING!! I loved the little cafe...this is also a must see!! Then we moved up to the museum. I really enjoyed it. I really like the way that my art history class is set up because going to these museums and art exhibits, I learn to appreciate art that I would have never appreciated had I not had a very learned professor walking me through each piece and telling me about it.

Thursday evening, I crashed. I had been so tired, I pretty much fell asleep at 5:30pm and woke up at 10:15am, with some wake up time in between. But I'm glad I took some time to sleep. Now I'm energized for one of my last weekends in Prague!

This is me being way behind on my blogs!!!

I am way behind on my blogs so I am going to try to compress 5 days in Prague into one blog!! :)


Wednesday 11 June 2008:
On Wednesday, I didn't have class, but we did have guest photo lecturers come talk to us!! Fist we had Michael O'Brien who has worked for National Geographic and Texas Monthly. He has also released a book named "Faces of Texas" with all different kinds of portraits of all different kinds of Texans.

After that, a bunch of us went down to Old Town Square to watch the Czech Republic play Portugal in Futbol on these huge big sceens. It was crazy!! There were soo many people there...and sooo much Pivo!!! haha. It was fun, but I didn't stay long because we had another speaker come talk to us.

Daniel Sperl is a Prague native photographer. He really inspired me because he was so humble and still loved photography. He doesn't consider himself a photographer, he just says its a hobby, even though he's released several photography books. If you are interested in photography, defiantly check out his work at www.danielsperl.com

Thursday 12 June 2008:
On Thursday I had photo class in the morning, then art history class. For our Thursday excursion for art history, we first went to the National Museum of Modern Art where we studied Kupka and his abstract art. This was the first time in my life that I appreciated abstract art and it's beauty. The second part of the class, we went to the Rudolfinum to see an exhibit entitled Angels Sleeping by Gottfried Helnwein. I was in complete shock at his beautiful work. He is a painter, but for about half of the exhibit, I thought it was photography because his paintings are so sharp and life like, and I wasn't the only one. He does absolutely amazing work. The coolest part about the exhibit is that we had a guided tour by Helnwein, himself!! It was awesome. Check out his exhibit at www.galerierudolfinum.cz. After class, a couple of us went to an exhibit on sexism. It was really interesting and controversial. They showed the Andy Warhol film Women in Revolt, which was the most made movie I have ever seen, but it was still interesting. They had a lot of films and art about the concept of sex and how it may be viewed as a faux pas, and masculinity and femininity. In the evening, Dana, Kate, and I (Dana and Kate are my roommates) went to have some wine on Charles Bridge. This was my first time to be on Charles Bridge at night. It was so beautiful. I took some great photos!

Friday 13 June 2008:
Ashley and I spent the whole entire day at the Prague Zoo. It was amazing. The Prague Zoo was ranked 7th best zoo in the world. The Zoo was so big!! My favorite part was the Africa part. They have this huge field made to look like an African Safari. It was so beautiful! They had giraffes and zebras and other African Animals. I also enjoyed the elephants. They were so cute!! After the Zoo, we meet Dana and Kate for dinner at The Pub. In the evening, we went to the student pub in the dorm to hang out, then Ashley and I watched an episode of Nip/Tuck.

Saturday 14 June 2008:
We all woke up early to go to the flea market. It was really fun!! I bought two scarves. My friend Kelly is so funny. She bought an accordion and a skate board, haha. The flea market was a lot of fun! Then we all came back to the dorms and rested. Saturday night was Museum night, which means that all the museums in Prague are free from 7pm-1am. We started off by going back to the Rudolfinum. All the film kids hadn't gone through the Helnwein exhibit, so I walked them through it. Then we enjoyed a concert by a youth symphony. After that, we went to eat dinner at The Pub, again!! The funny part is that we always get the same waiter. After dinner, we went to the Museum of Pop. It was really bad. I'm glad I didn't pay to get in. By this time it was already about 1am, but we stayed out and went clubbing because it was Araceli's birthday. She wanted to go salsa dancing, so we walked around for about an hour and a half trying to find a salsa club, when we finally a man hooked us into going to his club with his one line: "It's free to get in, free to get out". We laughed so hard, that we decided we had to go to that club, plus it was free to get out!! A damper was put on the night when Micky got his camera stolen, but we all still had fun, and are more careful than ever.

Sunday 15 June 2008
Today is Father's Day. I wish I could have spent it with my dad, but I went to Mass at St. Vitus and prayed for all the fathers in my life. I am blessed to have such a great dad and other men in my life that I also see as father figures. After mass, Ashley and I talked to some of the clergy about maybe doing her photo story on one of them, but we decided to find a Priest that spoke English. We then went to Pizza Colosseum for lunch. I had pasta with tomato sauce. It was good and spicy! We then picked up some ice cream and came back to the dorm, where I rested for the rest of the day.

Terezin

Yesterday we took a day trip, and took an hour long bus to Terezin. Terezin is a fortress built in the 18th century, and was later taken over in the 20th century and became a concentration camp. We went through the cemetery, the cells, the execution grounds. Terezin is different than any other concentration camp because it is still a small town. People live and work there. Its weird because every building in the town has seen so much. For example, the town bank used to be the Gestapo Post.

Another interesting thing about Terezin was that when the Red Cross wanted to investigate concentration camps, Terezin was changed to look like a beautiful resort where people wanted to be. This is why it took so long for people to learn about what really was happening in concentration camps. Terezin was more of a holding place before people were sent to the East to die in Auswitchz.

Probably the saddest part of our day trip was the Terezin Museum, which displays art of the young children who were held captive in Terezin. The sad part is that out of all the child artists whose art was displayed on the walls, I only saw that two of the hundreds had survived.

Terezin was difficult to visit, but I glad I went. It reminded me of what had happened in this area of Europe decades ago. Also, it reminded me to be thankful daily for freedom, democracy, and human rights, and to help those who still lack those gifts.

Pictures: The first photo was taken on the execution grounds. The grounds were a small hallway with slits in the walls so the nazis would just stick there guns in and shoot. On the wall, someone had craved in the word "Rage". The second photos is of the cells. It shows the beds that hundreds were crammed into, and also how people were know by a number, instead of by name.