It's certainly been an eventful couple of days.
Saturday, Elana and I went to Plzen to go check out the Pilsnerfest. This was a somewhat spontaneous move, which made for some difficulties. We had no problem (surprisingly) getting to the train station (Havlani Namesti) here in Prague and buying tickets to Plzen, or even finding the train. But once we got to Plzen, things were a bit difficult. Unlike in Prague, there was no English signage anywhere. The information booth at the train station was closed. And due to poor foresight on our part, neither Elana nor I knew anything about Plzen. We hadn't even looked at a map of the city. This realization was somewhat overwhelming, and it made for a frustrated, tense half hour or so. We began to wander, hoping to find either someone to ask or signs or some sort of map. The weird thing was that almost everything was closed, stores and restaurants alike. I hadn't eaten lunch yet at this point and it was already past 3, so I was certainly grumpy. We made our way towards a large museum, then heard music. We followed our ears and found Pilsnerfest!
Pilsnerfest was interesting. It was on the grounds of the historic Pilsner Urquell brewery, the birthplace of Pilsner beer. There were a ton of people, including parents with their young children. Again, there was nothing in English. We made our way around the festival. It consisted mostly of tents selling beer, tents selling more beer, tents selling all kinds of unknown foods (some of which looked pretty unappetizing, to be frank), some stages with live music, some inflatable carnival-type things, and a ton of people.
I was overwhelmed by the whole thing, so when I saw a stand selling hot dogs, I wimped out and went for the familiar. I also bought a beer, which I tried to drink.. but after a few sips I couldn't stand it because it was so bitter.
We left Pilsnerfest and went back towards the museum, where there was a beautiful garden. After exploring that, we decided to head back to the train station, and took the train home to Prague.

Yesterday, we had the second half of our orientation, in the form of a scavenger hunt. I was teamed up with a guy named Peter and two girls, Emma and Hayley. I knew Hayley a tiny bit because I'd seen her around AU. We did an awesome job running around Prague collecting things and answering questions. It was a lot of fun, and we got to see a lot of sights that I plan on returning too, particularly Prague Castle, home of St. Vitus Cathedral, by far the most beautiful building I've ever seen.

Today was the first of our intensive Czech classes. It was really overwhelming to be at the beginning of learning this complex language, but our teacher is very kind and patient. I still haven't gotten some of the pronounciation down well yet, but I should with practice. Afterwards, I just came home and took a long nap. I'm feeling a bit under the weather, and I can't tell how much of it is just being constantly overwhelmed and exhausted, how much is fatigue, how much is just me being in a mood. Tomorrow morning I have Czech class again, and in the afternoon I go on a walking tour of Prague. Tonight, I need to head to the store to get notebooks and some other miscellaneous things.... I just have to get motivated to go to the store, which I know will be another challenge. But I'm trying to keep positive and remember that overcoming these small challenges is what studying abroad is all about.