the next time i'm in stare mesto (old town), i need to have my camera with me. this neighborhood is incredible, with old buildings, open squares, and cobblestone. walking around today, i felt like i was in some james bond movie, and was half-expecting pierce brosnan in an expensive german car to come flying down the narrow streets in the midst of a car chase. seriously, old town is gorgeous and is exactly what you picture when you think of prague (albeit filled with western european tourists).

anyway.

today whitney, our friend rachel, and i had an adventure going grocery shopping. let me tell you, trying to figure out which czech-labelled product is shampoo and which is conditioner is an experience. we realized how little of this language we know when whitney was reading the label of some noodles and we didn't know the word for water. hopefully one of the first things we learn in our intensive czech classes is food words (after manners, of course. not knowing how to say "excuse me" and "thank you" is surprisingly frustrating. i pretty much panic whenever someone says anything to me in czech because all i can do is stand there with a dumb smile on my face in response.).

we also had a little mishap when we got on the tram to get home - we boarded the correct tram, just in the wrong direction. we were crossing the vltava river when we realized that, oh shit, we're going the wrong way - machova is on the same side of the river as tesco, the grocery/department store, so there should not have been any crossing of the vltava involved. whoops. we just got off at the next stop and got on the next train going in the opposite direction.

like i've been saying, the only way we're going to learn our way around this city is to get lost a few times - whether it's getting lost in conversation with a czech or lost on public transportation, it's the only way to really orient yourself with a new place.