wandering continued, again

Let me preface this entry by saying that with all of the chaos, I haven't taken pictures of any of the orientation events. So all of the photos you see are from a four hour walking tour of Prague this afternoon.

The first half of orientation week has certainly taken a toll on all of us. Early mornings and late nights [read: early mornings] have meant not getting much sleep even after a very full day of walking, talking, meeting, registering, navigating, touring, shopping, etc, etc, etc. Monday began with a group meeting of all exchange students (400 of us). After the recieving a crash course in Czech survival, the rest of the week was laid out for us. This meeting, while informative, could have been a fourth as long.

We spent the rest of the day getting logistics figured out. We found a vodafone store and bought prepaid cell phones which was actually incredibly easy. The language barrier here is not nearly as difficult to overcome as in Zug or Weinheim. Tuesday was the day we were all dreading. Registering for classes here is a notoriously chaotic process. This year was no different. After three hours of literally just standing around for no apparent reason, a younger professor signed my course book and sent me packing. Huh, weird. Union will only accept certain credits from Czech Technical. One engineering credit comes from Advanced Strength of Materials, and various electives come from the other classes.

After this, we hurried to the registration office to get our student ID cards, so that we could get transportation passes. You get a number when you enter the building, and watch the screen for your turn. There was a 5 hour wait. Luckily, we figured this out the day before and made a reservation for noon, so we got right through. At 4:00, we had another group meeting; awesome. Four hours later, after the most outrageously unorganized free-for-all of a trip signup, we all left the building. Phew.

Today, we went on a long walking tour of the Prague Castle and everything else. It was a nice walk, and we got to see some things we may not have found otherwise. Admittedly, I didn't listen to a word the tour guide said, but kept busy taking pictures. I can't possibly describe all that we saw, so I'll let them do the talking.

Don't forget, you can view a larger version of the photo just by clicking on it.