We had our first cooking class in Sociology of Food. We split into four groups and each had a different "flavor" of potato pancakes to make. It was very chaotic; imagine the montage of Ted Allen counting down right before the end of a Chopped challenge. I ended up in the garlic group and we added more garlic than our professor instructed because I can't cook and even I know you can never have enough garlic. At the end of the class, our professor and the front desk attendant judged our plating and tasted our pancakes before choosing a winner. They tried ours and my professor said, "Ten for texture, ten for taste." Another dub for team garlic 😎
Potato Pancake Recipe (Garlic Edition)
5 potatoes Some Garlic Some Salt Some Flour
Some Marjoram 1 Egg
Step 1: Peel your potatoes
Step 2: Grate your potatoes (They will look like applesauce; Don't use a yellow bowl if you don't want it to look gross)
Step 3: Grate some more potatoes for fun (If you want your pancakes to have some texture, use a different side of the grater)
Step 4: Let your potatoes sit for five minutes; While your potatoes are sitting, mince your garlic; Start with three cloves -- if the vibes don't feel right, mince cloves until they do
Step 5: Drain your potatoes; Squeeze the water out; Mince some more garlic; Have some fun
Step 6: Mix your potatoes and garlic together; Add salt and marjoram until you're worried it might be too much
Step 7: Add your flour; Nobody knows how much -- five heaping spoonfuls?
Step 8: Add an egg
Step 9: Mix and wait for an open burner
Step 10: Fry
Step 11 (optional): If you're in a hurry, throw the rest of the mixture in a pan and make a mega-cake
In the kitchen
Mixture
Frying the taters
Mega-cake
That night I went for a run and thought there were pebbles on the trail, but it ended up being a bunch of little snails because it was raining. I felt horrible at the thought that I may have crushed some of them and started using them as an obstacle to jump over. I think it's interesting that there are snails instead of worms.
Snail
The red dots are snails
Tuesday, October 10th
Because I don't have class on Tuesdays, I spent the day exploring and ended up at a cat cafe and climbing the Petrin Lookout Tower, which is a smaller version of the Eiffel Tower.
Cat Cafe
Cat
It looks like a mini-Eiffel Tower because it is a mini-Eiffel Tower!
View from the tower
Another view from the tower
After climbing the tower, I went on the hunt for a good soup. I found a beer-onion soup at a nearby beer garden and it was exactly what I wanted -- perfect now that the weather is getting cooler. Beer gardens are definitely not meant for anyone looking to eat alone; I had a table for at least eight people all to myself, but sometimes it's nice to slurp up a good soup in silence.
Soup
Wednesday, October 11th
After classes, I went in search of a mysterious peacock park that I'd heard whisperings about. Turns out it wasn't that mysterious and I just had to turn left when I usually go straight. It was amazing. I used to love the zoo and now I feel weird about the zoo because animals need more space but I still enjoy seeing them so it's complicated, but the peacocks just roam around this park. Now that I'm thinking about it, they still aren't in their natural habitat so that makes me sad, but if you don't think about it you can't be sad about it so that's what I'll do!
Beautiful irony I stumbled across on my way to the park
This girl's parents must not have taught her about personal space
I was surprised how chill they were around humans
This guy was striking some poses for me!
I went on a run that evening and almost stepped on a newt because I thought it was a stick, but stopped myself at the last minute. I moved it to the grass so no other careless runners would almost step on it and felt very proud of myself for saving a life.
Sunset on my run
Safe travels, my friend
Thursday, October 12th
During my art history class, we visited the Mucha Museum. Alphons Mucha was a Czech artist that is best known for his distinct style and decorative theatrical posters. I love his style and enjoyed the visit.
Some of Mucha's posters
That night, we visited the Signal Festival as an API activity. The Signal Festival is a celebration of light art and emerging technologies. There were a number of light installations throughout Old Town and the Karlín neighborhood, and Jana took us to the installations in Karlín because it is an area we hadn't spent as much time in. The installations were all very cool; each one lasted a couple of minutes and were on loop between 7pm and midnight. My favorite installation was a video mapping work that was projected on a church (video below).
One of the installations
Julianna, Katelyn, Ella, and I in front of one of the installations
After the festival, Katelyn, Julianna, and I went to a Mexican restaurant and it's crazy how Mexican food made us all feel at home (home for us being America, not Mexico). I had the best lemonade I've had so far and nachos.
Passionfruit lemonade
Friday, October 13th
On Friday, I had an ECES-organized trip to Karlštejn Castle, "...a large Gothic castle founded in 1348 by King Charles IV...[that] served as a place for safekeeping the Imperial Regalia as well as the Bohemian Crown Jewels, holy relics, and other royal treasures" (Wikipedia) and Srbsko. We took the train to Karlštejn and spent some time strolling through the town before our tour of the castle. While on the train someone pointed out that it was Friday that 13th, so I rushed to book a ghost tour for that evening. While exploring the town, we saw a statue of Vodyanoy, a Czech water spirit. I liked him (even though he'll "...sometimes drag people down to his underwater dwelling to serve him as slaves") so I took a picture and now you can like him, too! I don't have anything insightful to say about the castle except that carpeting was a great invention and it's crazy how much more inviting it can make a room.
On our way to Karlštejn
Walking through town
Vodyanoy
Karlštejn Castle
These pointy-toed tights are everything to me
I look in pain because the sun was impaling my eyeballs with its rays
View from the castle
After our tour of the castle, we hiked an hour to Srbsko, where we got drinks at a small restaurant on the river and caught the train back to Prague. There was someone walking their horses through the town and one of them wasn't on a lead; it doesn't sound crazy, but it felt crazy seeing a horse following its owner like a dog. I'm not doing it justice; please trust, it was insane.
Finally looking like fall
After getting back to the dorms, I hung out for a little bit and then set out for my ghost tour. Our guide was amazing and it was one of the best ghost tours I've been on. I knew some of the stories, but a lot was new to me which made it really interesting. When Prague's New Town was developed, the excavated dirt was brought to Old Town to raise the ground level and prevent flooding. Building's first floors became basements and we got to go down into two of them, which was really cool. Much of Prague's streets and sidewalks are made of cobblestones and there are often patterns made with different colored stones that I thought nothing of BUT our guide showed us one area where there are Xs in the cobblestones that act as grave markers. Under each X is thousands of bodies of people that died during the Black Death. Haha, cool!
This is a pub where a famous executioner would go after killing people and his fans would go to the pub next door to watch him; they didn't want to be in the same pub as him because he killed people and that's taboo, but they're still fans of his so I'm intrigued how that works
Golem (I don't really feel like writing about it, but it's very interesting and you can read about it here if you would like to!)
After the tour, I stopped at another one of the Signal Festival's video mapping installations on my way back to the dorm.
Video mapping light show on the library
Crazy
I read this over and realize I've said a lot of things are/n't crazy, but I'm tired and crazy is the best word I can think of -- I'll buy a thesaurus before writing my next post
