This weekend (Vienna/Prague)

This weekend, the following things happened:

• One of my German classmates, a Japanese woman, got married to her Viennese boyfriend. Jetzt ist sie verheiratet.
• My German language teacher, Barbara, sliced off the tip of her pinkie finger, found it on the floor, washed it off, stuck it back on, and wrapped it in gauze and medical tape. Wide-eyed,  "Did you go to the hospital?" I asked in present-tense German and using the English word for hospital. "Nah," she said. And after a little more thought/discussion, "But maybe I should."
• I went to Prague.

My favorite things about Prague:

• The architecture is gorgeous. Not just in Old Town, where the tourists are concentrated and most of the money for restorations has gone, but in the other neighborhoods as well.
• The people are friendly. It isn't hard to get them to smile or laugh with you.
• The service in cafes & restaurants is incredible. The servers stand off to the side, seemingly just talking and joking with each other, but the minute you put your menu down or finish your coffee or put your knife and fork together on the plate, they're by your side asking what you need. (On a side note, I commented to my host's boyfriend tonight about the difference in service between Vienna and Prague, and while he agreed that Viennese servers in the traditional cafes can be snobby, he said that the attitude I construe as rudeness is in fact a time-honored tradition in Vienna and an expected part of the cafe-going experience. Hmph.)
• It's cheap. Or at least must cheaper than Vienna or Paris. In Old Town the price of coffee & food on par with Madrid, and outside of Old Town it's cheaper than Madrid.
• And the public transportation is convenient and incredibly cheap. Unlike in Madrid, Paris and Vienna, the tram system is the main form of public transportation. They only have two underground metro lines in Prague (because they were so expensive to build, it was explained to me), but the tram network is extensive and there are buses, too. One ride was only 24 crowns, which is just under €1,00. (The exchange rate was about 27 crowns to the euro).

My least favorite things about Prague:

• The yellow jackets. While they weren't everywhere, when they did come around, they were super curious about people and hard to get rid of. I'm allergic to them, so this was a cause of concern for me.
• The spider infestation. When I walked over the bridge the first time it was daylight and the spiders weren't on their webs, so I didn't even notice there were any webs. But on Friday night when Erdem was walking me back to the flat I was staying at, I definitely noticed them. The webs are on the streetlights, on the signs, and covering the the railings of the bridge. And the spiders are huge and THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM!!! *shudder, shudder* When I told my Viennese host about them, she asked if they were gray with white crosses. I had no idea. They were gray, but I wasn't about to get close enough to see a design on their backs. Anyway, she said the gray ones with white crosses are lucky. If this is the case and that is indeed the type of spider that's infested Prague, it must be one of the luckiest cities in the world. Still, I'm not a fan of spiders & after I got home on Friday night I kept feeling phantom spiders crawling on my body. *shudder, shudder*
• The hordes of tourists. I know, I know: I'm one of them. Still.
• I destroyed my feet. I realize this actually isn't Prague's fault. I only brought three pairs of shoes to Europe, only one pair of which is suitable for extended periods of walking, and for whatever reason that was the only pair I *didn't* bring to Prague. The result was that I could barely stand to walk anymore after the first day but did it anyway because there was no way I was spending my one weekend in Prague hanging out in my room. It put a serious cramp in my style, not to mention huge blisters on the bottoms of my feet and a bloody mess on the top of one foot. I wasn't able to go see nearly as much of Prague as I wanted. Still, what I saw was pretty awesome.

On a related note but having nothing to do with Prague itself: as a result of two 5-hour train rides with my friend Erdem - who is from Turkey but lives in Barcelona, works at the university on a Finnish project and is also learning German at the Deutschakademie - I now know how to play a card game he calls Elevens. Yet one more card game to teach my mom. Yay! ;*)