Last weekend, I was in Eastern Europe of the first time in my life. I’ve noticed that since I’ve been in Europe, the number of countries that I’ve visited has doubled. It’s great to be able to travel across the border into the Netherlands, France, Austria, and the Czech Republic, all without once pulling out my passport (because all of these countries belong to the Schengen Area). In fact, the latter is the country where I spent my weekend. A group of friends and I traveled to Prague and had a terrific time there.
Prague was the crossroads of three cultures for hundreds of years—Czech, German, and Jewish. The city’s rich history revealed itself to us as we took museum tours and regarded ancient architecture. Some of the sights that we saw there were the Franz Kafka Museum, the Old Jewish Quarter, and some medieval towers. Fortunately, Prague suffered very little destruction during the Second World War. Thus we were able to enjoy the sights of very old, regal buildings.
On Monday, however, it was back to the reality of classes. Luckily, I survived my first 20 minute presentation in German. My presentation topic was Duke Ellington, whose music I find very inspiring. Although preparing for the presentation was a lot of work, I enjoyed learning more about this great composer. Now I have to prepare for another 20 minute presentation and a couple of 10 page papers. Things are getting rather busy now with schoolwork, but I believe that I have learned so much this semester.
