Shopping and Sporcle

Sunday was EPIC. In every possible IKEA sense.

It was a day that started out innocently enough. I woke up at 9:30, and forgot, as usual, that no one else in my apartment would be awake until at least 12:30 (on this particular morning, it was actually something like 1pm before anyone else woke up). Now, I want to make clear that this is not a swipe at my apartment mates, because if I could sleep in a totally would. Rather, it is entirely the opposite. It is a bitter lament that I will never be able to do anything close to waking up at 1pm. Thank you Norwegian gene pool. Or maybe Dad's freakish ability to wake up at 6:30 every morning (I love you parents!). Anyway, I got up early, and after making lots of coffee and eating breakfast, I proceeded to play Sporcle games for three hours. Yes, I typed that correctly.  Instead of taking advantage of being up early on a beautiful Prague morning, instead of going to an historic museum, instead of going for a walk in a nearby park, instead of doing anything remotely admirable or noteworthy, I played Sporcle. My only small saving grace here is that I had discovered Sporcle the night before when I clicked on a link on Rhee-Soo’s blog (which you should totally check, by the way, out if you want another perspective on Prague http://rheesooinprague.blogspot.com/. For example, while I had a very productive Monday today, Rhee-Soo had the BEST MONDAY EVER.). I can name all the presidents now, though, and do other useful things like name 21 out of 25 songs on "DJ Earworm's new video United States of Pop 2009" and list the states in order of entrance to the Union..

After realizing with a jolt of shock and horror that it was 1pm, I decided to make plans. Here’s where it gets good:

I got in touch with Rhee-Soo, who was also up, and we decided to go do something noteworthy. On this particular day, IKEA seemed like the most enjoyable noteworthy thing to do, so that’s what we did.  We went back to the IKEA that I had visited during orientation, BUT this time we spent over two hours there!  IKEA is pretty much the most amazing place ever, and I got lots of good stuff like..  a laundry basket, which I desperately needed since a suitcase is no place to keep one’s dirty clothes, some rainbow colored bowls, IKEA-brand coffee, an apron, and random cooking utensils. I have never been to an IKEA in the states, and I assume that they are all pretty much the same.  However, IKEA is all new to me, and I was just totally in awe of the completely furnished model rooms all over the place that you could walk into and explore. It was just TOO much and I was sort of all over it. So much all over it, in fact, that I took about as many pictures at the IKEA as I take on walking tours. Okay, that is a lie. But we did take a lot of pictures, considering we were in a store, and not viewing anything particularly historic (although I guess you could make the argument that IKEA should be considered historic because it is so awesome). After we were done shopping, we got ice-cream downstairs at the snack booth. The ice-cream was so much fun, because there is no person to put the soft serve in a cone for you. Instead, you just get an empty cone, which you place in a machine that makes you the perfect ice cream cone. Very interesting. OH, I almost forgot to mention the most important part of the IKEA experience: there is an IKEA bus that transports shoppers from the metro station to the IKEA store. It’s even painted with the IKEA logo.

Rhee-Soo hard at work at her IKEA desk

Best bedroom ever, except for the kid who has to sleep on the floor. Clearly, we know which child is loved more in this scenario.

Seriously. This bed is awesome. 

Oh, to be a child at IKEA...

I came back and worked on a couple apps for stuff at Richmond, then went to Popo’s with the apartment mates for a little while.

It was my turn to order the nachos. 

As of today, I am the proud (trend-following) owner of straight leg jeans. Might as well just make me an official E.U. citizen. Just kidding. But it will definitely be easier to wear my boots now. Since I didn’t have class today, I decided to go out to the mall at the Zličín metro stop and get all that stuff I had been meaning to get since I got to Prague and just hadn’t gotten around to getting yet. Clothes shopping takes a little more effort here, since sizing is different in every country, but I’m going on 4 weeks in Prague, so I thought that I was ready to brave the mall scene in Prague. I got some random clothes and an extra pair of running tights, since it’s hard to keep up as well with laundry here as I would like to. I also went shopping for groceries in a GINORMOUS grocery store attached to the mall. It was set up similar to a Food Lion or Kroger, and it had a fantastic selection of Parmesan cheese, which I may revisit once mine runs out (although I’ve also heard there’s a fantastic cheese show down the street from the apartment, so it might have dibs). I was able to accomplish all of this before dinnertime because I was actually out of the apartment close to noon today!

Tomorrow is a very important day because it is my first day of REAL CHARLES UNIVERSITY CLASSES, which meet, generally once a week for an hour and a half. The exception to this rule is my Beginner Czech class, which meets two days a week for two hours a class. Tomorrow, I’ll be in class for quite a while, because this week I am taking all the classes I signed up for so that I can decide which ones I want to take for the rest of the semester. I get to start off my day at 8:20 with two hours of Czech, followed by three more hour and a half classes. It should be an absolute ball. In all seriousness though, I am really excited to start classes, and I think that the more Czech I know, the more comfortable I’ll feel in Prague. Also, fun fact, I have Beginner Czech with Renee, so I already know one person in my class! That’s always a nice thing.