Papež

The last two days have been great, so I will try to pick up where I left off yesterday recounting the story of the weekend.

Karen, Blair, me, and Megan

I got off the bus a little before 5am and jumped on the metro. I took the yellow line all the way to the last stop where my friends from my program, Karen, Megan, Blair, and Lauren were waiting for me. We then took a bus to Stara Boleslav, a town about 30km north of Prague. I had barely slept and was carrying all of my things from my Munich trip, so I felt a bit homeless. We got off the bus and followed the crowd of people until we got to a giant field. It was still dark out, and we watched the sun rise over the field. We set out a sheet and sat down to wait for 9:45 when the big event would take place.

Karen and me

I won't leave you in the dark anymore and I'll tell you what "papež" means. My friends and I made the trek yesterday morning because we wanted to see THE POPE! We didn't have tickets (because they were all reserved by September), but we went as "pilgrims" and just sat in the grass for Mass. At 9:15 we noticed that soldiers had formed a line down the aisle, so we got up to see what was happening. We heard sirens in the distance, and then all of a sudden we saw a motorcade. As a Catholic, when I had heard that the pope was going to be in Prague, I felt obligated to go, but I wasn't really excited. However, when the popemobile came into view, I was surprised how excited I got. I realized I kept repeating "Oh my God, it's really the pope," but then I realized that technically I was in Church, so I cut it out. Anyway, the pope drove RIGHT BY US. Here's one of the pictures I took, and I didn't even have to zoom!


It was so exciting to see the pope! Mass was pretty boring since we couldn't really understand it, but it was still a great experience. I knew that the Czech Republic was very atheist, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how few people were there. Yes it was a very large field so it probably dwarfed the crowds, but it still wasn't nearly what I had expected. All in all it was something I will always remember, and it's pretty cool that I didn't have to go to Italy to see the pope!

Today was my first day of classes. I had two today, and I have my other two tomorrow, so I will just tell about all of them tomorrow.

After class today I went to see a Czech movie with my friends. We saw The Protektor, a film that takes place during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. It had English subtitles (I'm not that good at Czech), and I LOVED it! I wish that I could buy it. After the movie we went to a local establishment where someone was having a birthday party. They had platters and platters of food left when they were leaving, so they brought them over and gave them to us, along with all the balloons from the party. We were so excited that you would have thought it was Christmas.
I apologize that I have been so slow in putting up my pictures, but I'll get caught up soon! I put up some from Bohemian Paradise, and the rest, including the Munich ones are coming soon!

On another note, I have sent out quite a few postcards in the last few weeks, but the language barrier at the post office has been a little difficult, so I'm not sure if I've done it right. If you could let me know if you get a postcard, that'd be great!