Freezing in Prague

As I'm sure will surprise absolutely nobody, I have been somewhat remiss in setting up this blog - it's now been almost a week since I arrived in the beautiful city of Prague, and yet nary a peep has been heard from me (sorry mum). The reasons for this are threefold: a heavy schedule of lessons, a pesky essay on Russia, Georgia and international institutions that I really should have finished before I got here, and, most importantly, cheap beer.

I shall write more details later, but suffice to say for now that the course is great and everybody here is lovely. Prague itself is absolutely beautiful - a somewhat strange mix of old, twisty streets, grand squares, the inevitable tourist shops selling marionettes, absinthe and and other assorted overpriced delights and, overlooking it all, some magnificently intimidating gothic piles that I can't wait to explore.

We have been very lucky as, unusually even for this time of year, the centre of the city has been blanketed with a lovely thick coating of snow for much of the last week. Unfortunately, the snow is now gone on the streets, but rather than melting into a sorry pile of grey mush, as happens in England, it has iced over into treacherous streaks of grey death, which make walking around very interesting. The temperature outside is also now about -7 degrees, which is excellent preparation for Siberia, but none too forgiving to stupid people who leave their beautiful fur-lined gloves at home and then decide to go for a random evening wander around the Old Town. If it had not been for the warmth provided by my little cup of gluhwein I think I would be typing this blog with my toes.

I have never written a blog before, so we shall see what becomes of this effort - it may be that it shall wither and die due to the aforementioned cheap beer, or it may be that I get a little obsessed with having my very own space to write about the travels and it ends up very long and boring indeed. Either way, family, friends, let me know if you have made it this far!