Thursday, May 22nd

Today was pretty boring. We had crit from 9:30-12:30 and 2-4. Honestly, I didn't get much out of it, mainly because Scott (my professor) and I had a kind of informal crit yesterday, and because I was so tired. It's hard to keep focused over that extended period of time.

I also feel like I really need a day off. I hit the ground running here (going straight from the airport to orientation stuff) and I think I'm starting to wear down a little bit. Hopefully the weekend will be a good time to relax a little but still get some work done.

After crit I went back to the Pension with David and Ashley. A group of us had talked about going to see Indianna Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at a movie theater in Flora (a mall) after a nap.

Ashley, David, Stewart, Susan, Christin, Farrin and I ended up going to the movie at around 8:30. Flora is such a nice mall - its almost hyper-designed and super clean. We grabbed dinner and then went into the movie theater.

The theater was so different from the American theaters that I'm used to. Tickets were about 200 crowns each (around $13), and you got to pick your seat when you purchased the ticket. The theater itself was gorgeous - outside the main wall was painted a dark navy blue and had little lights that looked like stars scattered all over it.

Snacks (popcorn, but no coke icees) were also super expensive. All the direction and information signs were very nice and in different colors of neon. The theater that Indianna Jones was in was also really nice. The seats were high and very comfortable, and the screen was huge.

The movie itself - I'm not really sure what to say. I feel like I grew up on the Indianna Jones films and can't really have an unbiased view of the film. While we were watching the movie, no one left the theater. It was fun, a little scary, a little gross, and....the more I thought about it afterwards, the more I didn't really like it. It's a fun movie, but it's just...not the same. It's like they (Spielberg and Lucas) think that it's awesome, and they think that we, the viewer, should be happy with whatever they give us, which happens to be an outlandish plot and a lot of soft-focus on Harrison Ford. I guess what I'm trying to say is go see it, you won't feel like you wasted your money, but just...don't think about it afterwards.

I feel like the main reason I liked the movie is because it felt like a little bit of home. I think that everyone in our group felt like that.

On the way home from Flora David, Stewart, Ashley, Susan and I stopped at a Billiard Club close to the Pension. The bar was a little sketchy, but the back room reminded me of the Van Gogh painting The Night Cafe. The boys played a couple rounds of pool and then we went back to the Pension.