The Real Deal

Cant sleep, so I guess I will keep this up while I'm ahead! 

Today was the first official day of the ISA prague trip! Still solo this morning, I slept in and then went looking for breakfast around 11 am. On my way to the old town, I literally bumped right into the clock tower right before noon. Realizing that I did not have to wait the twelve minutes to watch (I'm not even sure exactly what you watch yet) I continued on my way. To realize that I could take my time and continue about my food-hunt was absolutely liberating. I am here to stay! However, the surrounding area looked just like disneyland. Down to the starbucks..im not even kidding. 

Soon after  I found a market where I got some fruit! Even though it was way more expensive than it needed to be, I was starving, and hey, it looks good doesn’t it?

 After that I continued on my way and officially got ACTUALLY lost. As in, "I swear this restaurant isn’t on the map and where am i" lost. I settled for a tacky place along the tourist strip by the clock tower that had a delicious looking meal. Lesson learned of the day: sometimes it is actually okay to be a tourist. I enjoyed my roasted veggies and walnuts with goat cheese, pesto, and honey. While eating, I took out my Prague Guidebook with pride. I was able to sort my money by country - as well as sort my thoughts - and I enjoyed the fact that I could hear the cheesy music from around the corner. At a certain point, you just gotta call a spade a spade. And I'm certainly not a local yet, so I enjoyed my touristness with all I could. 

After that, I headed back to my hotel and to my new apartment to settle in! It is INCREDIBLE. maybe the nicest apartment I will see in my 20s. Gigantic room to myself with plenty of space, a view of a beautiful garden, a huge kitchen with a dining area and a couch, it is perfect. Here are a few pictures:

 I also was able to meet my roommates Claire, Julie, and Bri. We went to meet the rest of the group at Wencelas Square and I was proud of the fact that I was able to get there without assistance! Of course we had to take our first cheesy tourist pic as roommates. Our entire group than headed to the ISA headquarters for orientation.

Afterwards, a group of the girls decided to go to dinner, and succeeded in again being very unsure of our whereabouts. Still, we were able to have a delicious dinner together at the Restaurant Celebrity. Everyone comes from all over the place, so it will be interesting to get to know each other more in the next few weeks. 

Bri Julie and I leisurely strolled back through Prague 2 to our apartment, stopping again at Wenclas for this picture!

Overall, I am super excited about the trip. Ironically, today more than yesterday made me realize how I am fully doing this by myself. Being surrounded by other people my age- but having all of those people be complete strangers-is a very, very interesting situation to be in. I am looking forward to seeing where this takes me, as I am sure there will be lots of great stories and great moments out of it. As I was unpacking tonight, I found this quote and thought it was perfectly fitting. More later!