There is a certain appealing bizarreness to sitting in an internet cafe in the Old Town of Olomouc listening to Scott Joplin's The Entertainer and the sound of typing.
Today was a museum and church day, and consequently a staring and spiral staircase day, and taking pictures in very dimly lit churches is not easy, let me tell you.
One spiral staircase took us up to a glass and white room that showed us the whole city laid out, the only thing that seemed higher was a castle (or at least incredibly large chateau) on a distant hillside, and the gold-tipped spires of the cathedral, or Katraldy Wenceslas. (Not "Good King Wenceslas" like in the Christmas Carol, I think that guy was Polish, or Bohemian instead of Moravian.) Another spiral staircase, in one of the churches, took us up to the balcony and the organ. The organist played music for us, and then came down and talked to us for a little while. He started in on his speil speaking German, because he thought we were German tourists. (I wonder why?) The organ is the oldest in Moravia, several hundred years, and made of hundreds of pipes. The more bass notes on the organ were especially thrilling, they would sit in your chest thrumming.

There are tennis courts right next to the Gol, our hotel. We tend to sit outside in the evenings, while people stagger out from their naps or get their pre-bar drinking started. Last night a group of about twelve of us sat out there talking and drinking and an irritated tennis player came over and scolded us, "I thought that Germans were the loudest nation. I was wrong."

Food has been fantastic. I keep gobbling it up quickly and forgetting to take pictures before I have only a plate of breadcrumbs and stray olives and carroty bits left. Today was onion soup and hot raspberries over icecream. If the gyro stand is open that is what I am having for dinner. The gyros are only 45 crowns, which is... well, one dollar is equivalent to sixteen crowns by current exchange rates. So it's hella cheap, and the big greasy pile of pressed meat skewered by the front window and slowly being rotated is enough to make me--on-again-off-again vegetarian that I am--drool. And as far as money goes, I feel rich here, eating out every day and I haven't run out of the food spending money I was given, I haven't even had to tap into home money. Tomorrow will be for buying souviners and some clothes though, so some will get spent, soon.

There are parks all around th city where the old fortifications used to be, so last night I went walking with a few of the other students. We found peacocks in a tree, they caterwauled pitifully whenever somone walked by. It's amazing how even the males, with their ridiculous tails get up in the highest of branches. Then we foun and played on a great old playground with the good make-you-sick-real-quick spinning centrifuge thing and some seesaws that we were able to fit on. I think somebody took good seesaw pictures.

Baroque churches make me totally wish I were Catholic, zomg, a little kneeling and a lot of opulence, hell yeah. (j/k about the Catholic thing, you all know that, right? First night at the bar among the ten sitting around the barracks on the velvet couch there was only one Christian, and quite a few who freely and proudly labeled themselves as atheists.)

Allright, time to check The Facebook and then head back to the Gol for company and some time without shoes on.