From Prague, part 1

So I have not written in this blog for awhile now, and I apologize. I named this entry part 1 because I am staying at a hotel with free internet, and I want to make it a point to write a few entries while here, especially because our hostels in Poland will not have such accomodations.
First, I posted my daily schedule online so I can focus more on my own thoughts and reflections on the blog, and not just a list of what I am doing. That schedule is here http://picasaweb.google.com/joefoster86. I may have a chance to put some pictures up too, but I am not sure.
That being said, I have a lot to share from Croatia, Bosnia, Vienna, and now Prague. It has been amazing. I have learned a lot and am slowly gaining an understanding of different peoples and places, and as I ask myself who a Bosnian really is, or who a Czech really is, it has led me to great reflection on who an American is and to what degree I fit the stereotype of American.
Health wise I have been pretty well. Our group took a hit and got sick for a bit in Bosnia, but it was shortlived and provided a needed mandatory break to really rest up for a day, and we did not miss any major excursions. As of this morning I feel like I have a bit of a cold, but it is not bad. I am taking the super vitamins Dad gave me and getting my rest and drinking a lot of fluids and all that, so no worries.
Classes have been amazing overall. I have an art test tomorrow I feel moderately prepared for, but it is only mid afternoon so I have plenty of time to study. Prague is home to a lot of Gothic architecture which is very interesting. Honestly, having gone through a dozen cathedrals already it is hard for them not to all blend together in my mind, but I have tried to see how each one is distinct. For example, the one we saw here yesterday has 2 gothic spires and 1 Baroque spire because it took so long to build the style changed. Many cathedrals are this way. Another church that really stood out to me was the church at Melk Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery and frequent lodging place of Austrian Emperors found along the Danube about an hour and a half from Vienna, Austria. It is a beautiful community and it is particulary amazing to see all the trees changing colors, just as they are here in Prague. Anyway, Melk Abbeys church is very very ostentatious and almost gaudy. Everything is gold or gold plated and highly ornate and decorated. Obviously all of these great cathedrals I am visiting cost a fortune to build, but this style, the Baroque if I remember correctly, really seemed almost ridiculous. It made me wonder how I would build a church. Would I use every precious metal and every beautiful material I could get my hands on and make the church as beautiful and glorious as possible as a way for church goers to get a sense of Gods majesty, grandeur, greatness, and beauty, or would I want to not use any excess materials and have it be a barren room because Gods beauty is not of this world and He might not want us to spend so much money on a treaure on earth. I think the latter until I remember when Jesus said there was a time for a bottle of perfume worth a years wages to be poured out to clean and annoint His feet with. It is good to think about, nonetheless.
As a side note, keyboards here switch the y and the z keys, and I cannot figure out how to produce an apostrophe or a question mark. The at sign is a similar difficulty. So forgive my little mistakes that I am sure I will not catch.
The weather has been surprisingly very very nice. Wearing a T shirt and jeans and having my jacket with me has been fine for basically the entire trip. We have had several days in which I wished I had shorts, and I have gone out several nights in a T shirt, jeans, and Rainbows. We have seen very little rain, and when we have it has not hindered our activities at all. One day in Bosnia was particularly warm. It was hot sitting in the back of a bus with no air conditioning but then very nice sitting in the shade by the river eating fish caught from that river earlier that day. Actually I believe that is the only time I have been served two whole fish on my plate. I have always had it fileted or fried, but eating it right off the fish was really good, and it was amazing to know that the fish had been caught in the river I was sitting next two and then thrown onto a BBQ just hours before we got there. By the way, most of Bosnias water is potable. You can safely drink its mountains river water due to the clean underground springs, which is a really weird idea for me, and I never would have thought of Bosnia in that way.
Quickly, I want to mention food. Overall, it has been good. Bosnia did a lot of very brothy soups that were rather plain but good, an almost entirely cabbage salad which is ok but nothing special and gets old rather fast, and then a meat dish of some kind. We had one dish several times. It is hard to describe. It is a flaky breaded material rolled up almost like a taquito but with a weird cheese in it, or that same cheese with spinach, or potatos. The potato one was by far the best because the cheese tasted almost sour, but that is how they eat it. Desserts were always really really sugary, often based on a sugar-water syrup kind of like honey. For example, I tried Baclava for the first time in Bosnia, and it was pretty good although it is even too sweet for me to eat much of it, which is saying something. Austria is much more Western and you can even tell as you drive from Bosnia to Austria. The foot is heavier--more meat, especially sausage and pork filets, but they also have good soups and apple strudel, which is amazing. We had Weinerschitzel our first night there, and it was pretty good, just a fried pork filet. I try to always make a note in my journal of what I eat, so I can tell you all more later. So far Prague has been good. VERY heavy, large portions when we have eaten as real sit down restaurants. Our first night we got served rye bread and large pretzels, and then ham lunch meat style rolled up with a mustardy horse radish inside of it, and then the main dish was half a duck, sauercraut, red cabbage, dumplings, a heavy moist and doughy bread, a piece of mushy ham, and a piece of sausage. Duck was great, sausage was good, dumplings were kind of plain and an odd texture for me, but pretty good and verz filling, sauercraut is ok, but saulty and mushy, ham was too mushy for me. Then they brought out a dessert that was either rubarb and or cherry filled breaded dessert. Also heavy. Bread part was moist and sweet, like a thick cake, and the cherry rubarb part was really tart and gushy-did not eat all of that part.
Ok. Well someone is waiting for this computer and I should go study. I wrote a lot more than I thought I would get a chance to but hopefully I will be able to write once more tonight or tomorrow. Love you all and miss you. Hopefully I will find a decent priced phone place soon to call home, but I have not seen one so far in Prague. Hope all is well, and thank you for your letters and messages and emails. It is good to feel connected to home when I am so far away, and I cannot wait to get home and be with you all again.
Grace and Peace,
Joe