You Should Prague-ably Czech This Out.

Ahoj,

How does one top a trip to Iceland?

You don't.

I went into this trip with no expectations. I was mainly going because half the dorm and all my friends were going so I figured why not? I've only heard good things about Prague so I'll go.

That is until half my friends backed out. I get it. A 12 hour bus ride to Prague and back isn't on the top of everyones list. So our party of 6 went down to 3.

 This trip was planned by the international student network (ISN) so I didn't have to do any planning or booking for once. That was an upside to the trip; the itinerary was already made. Booyah.

The night before we left my friend Ashley and I attended a Brantley Gilbert concert. Fun fact, last time I saw Brantley was in July. He opened for Jason Aldean and Kenny Chesney at the Rose Bowl. I was surrounded by 100,000 other fans and too far away from the stage to even see his face. OHHHHH but not this time. For only 20 Euro I was front row. And Oh Em Gee he even touched my hand. Twice! I guess thats what happens when you see a country artist outside of the United States. It was awesome. Wish I had brought my cowboy boots to Europe but oh well. Next time.

Incase you can't tell, we aren't the same height

HIIII!!!

Country must be country wide... more like internationally wide

Andddd we are seeing Kacy Musgraves on Sunday. YASSS

The next night, we left Amsterdam at 10pm and prepared ourselves for a 12 hour vertical sleep. Shout out to Roy for being my bus buddy. I'm lucky that I have such short legs - I could just curl up into a ball. Can't say the same for Roy...

After arriving in Prague, Kayte (my roomie), April, and the rest of Fraijlemaborg took off to explore! The next few days consisted of exploring, a walking tour, pub crawl and on the last night, clubbing in a 5 story club. Each floor was a different music genre. Thank god I didn't have to dance to stupid EDM music and I could just switch floors. Quite nice.

I didn't take many pictures this trip. I was so cold my hands were in my pockets most of the days, so again, this is a mix of my photos and Roy's. I would have taken more but in the words of Kayte, "I just couldn't be bothered."

The gals. Do we look cold?

Charles Bridge. Constructed in 1300's

Vltava River

I think right after we took this picture, our entire group got separated for an hour and then we all randomly found each other again. Quite an adventure. 

The streets were beautiful

There was a different era of architecture everywhere you looked

An Architecture's dream

Or a designer's dream

Just look at that door. That's a nice door.

The backside of the Schwarzenberg Palace 

Now this is completely Renaissance 

                         And then down the street... Art Nouveau architecture 

And then BOOM. A gothic cathedral. 

The front

Interior vaulting 

How cute is my roomie?

If your favorite architecture term isn't flying buttresses then we can't be friends

April, me and Kayte. The British Babes and a Redhead.

The most uneventful clock tower ever. Isn't worth the hype. But how it actually works is pretty cool.

Clock tower

Supposedly, we were standing in the largest castle in the world but I highly disagree. It doesn't stand up to my definition of a castle. It was more of an area.

The view!

Want cheap beer in Europe? I recommend Prague. Also, Caro's face... lol. 

I also recommend TGI Fridays after a bar crawl

Party Time

Side note: the hip hop and R&B floor wasn't as hoodrat as I would have liked

FRAIJLEMABORGGGGGGG!!!!

Even though the weekend didn't top Iceland, it was still fun to hang out with everyone from the dorm. I hadn't traveled with many of them before, including my roommate. So it was fun to hang out with people outside of our dorm.

As many of you already know, I was in Prague when I found out the one of my friends, Nohemi, was killed in the terrorist attacks in Paris. I'm still in shock and trying to process everything. It's been hard being away from my family, friends and the entire CSULB Design department. I've been flooded with emails and messages for events for Nohemi that I cannot attend because I am in Amsterdam. I wish I could be in the Design building sharing memories, talking and hugging everyone, but I can't. So instead I decided to write about her beautiful soul and to share some of my memories here in my blog. If I hadn’t been studying abroad, I wouldn’t have gotten to see her and hug her a month ago.

This picture is all across my news feed. I love that this is the picture everyone is sharing of her. This picture was taken in Amsterdam when she and the rest of my design friends visited Amsterdam. We had planned on meeting and going on a walking tour around the city but thought nahhhhh and I met them at a coffee shop instead. And there we decided that I'd be your own personal tour guide around the city.

I have so many memories of Nohemi from Design. We spend the first 2 years in a lot of the same design classes. I was always envious of her skills. I hated hanging up my work next to hers because she was so talented. I remember when she was working on her toy for 254 she told me she was doing a steampunk turtle and my reaction was how the F did you think of that?? But that was Nohemi, always thinking outside of the box and super creative. Her steampunk turtle inspired my fancy dancing monkey the following year. I liked how she took an animal and gave it a theme, so that was the inspiration behind my toy. Not only did I have classes with Nohemi but I also saw her around the design department at least once a day. I'm pretty positive she lived there. Need something from the shop? Find Nohemi. Need someone to open the print lab? Find Nohemi. Need something from the check out room? Find Nohemi. She would help me all the time and I just want to say thank you, Nohemi. You also had projects and deadlines just like everyone else but you would always stop what you were doing to help me not only me, but everyone else. Although most of my interactions and memories are from the design building, my favorites are from Amsterdam.

My tour around the city of Amsterdam, wasn’t much of a tour at all. We walked to Waterlooplein to go to the open air market only to discover it wasn’t open that day. Instead we laid down at the dock along the canal and started to chat. We stayed there for about an hour, talking about design and comparing our studying abroad lives. I hadn’t had classes with her and the other CSULB designers for a few years but it didn’t matter, we still had plenty to talk about. We were a design family. It didn’t matter that I had switched to BA. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t studying design over here. I always felt judged by other ID designers and like a failure for switching from Industrial Design to Design but you told me “hey, design is design. You are still doing what you love.” Which was true. I told them if I got a job working for the design department at Disneyland I would definitely sign them in for free.

I left around dinnertime to go finish my homework and you guys had a few more hours until your bus. We gave our hugs, said our good lucks and ended with see you soon in Paris!



Now the reason I love this picture so much is because there was a supermoon that night and you guys were lucky enough to view it and take awesome pictures with Niran’s camera. I remember leaning out the window of my dorm looking at the moon and thinking to myself, man I bet they will have a remarkable view of the moon the entire drive back to Paris.

And that is why I love that that is the picture of you. It makes me heartbroken because that was the last time I saw you, but I am grateful that I had the chance to see you one last time.

I want to go home and be with the entire design department but I can’t. I want to be at your vigil but I can’t. So I’ll light my own candle here in Amsterdam for you. In the city where I got you addicted to stroopwafels.

I've attached the link to her Memorial Fund: http://www.donationto.com/The-Nohemi-Gonzalez-Memorial-Fund

I’ll never forget our cool Pocahontas tattoo, your fun hair styles and mostly your bubbly, kind, beautiful soul. May you rest in peace Nohemi.