Adjusting

I'm sorry that it's taken me a few days to get a new post out, I've been busy acclimating to my new environment. Since I arrived a few days before my classmates, I spent the first two or three days here getting a feel for my surroundings. I walked about 5 miles in every direction down multiple streets to build a mental-map of the area that I'm in. I found some nice parks, shops, and a fairly cool old monastery. I'm not going to lie, these first few days were a little rough. I was dealing with some sleep problems and a little home sickness, but both have progressively improved as I've met more of my new classmates and kept busy with school activities. I always forget how much I take advantage of the comfort and convenience of home and how I don't fully appreciate the people and places that I'm most familiar with until I'm separated from them. That's my sentimental post for the month.
The activities for my class started yesterday at an older portion of Charles University in the center of town. There was an orchestral string quartet playing music by Dvořák, (probably the most famous Czech composer who was also extremely influential in American classical music), some speeches by some of the campus big-wigs, a placement test, and then a dinner that night. The music was exceptional and the surroundings were equally awesome, but I got absolutely nothing out of the forty-five minutes of speeches that were all in Czech, a language I don't speak and am taking this course to learn. The purpose of the test I took was to separate the 202 students from 39 countries and 4 continents into different groups based on our Czech language skills. Since I've never been known for my skills especially when it comes to foreign languages, as my Spanish and Japanese teachers can attest, I turned in the exam blank with only my name, country of origin, and perceived skill level (beginner) written at the top. I think I was the first person to leave the lecture hall out of the whole group of students, my mom would be proud. After turning in the test I went outside and met a few other guys, (one from France, one from Germany, and one from Greece), who had all done the same. Despite our lack of Czech skills we all spoke English and decided to go for a walk around the Old City portion of Prague and have a beer. Later that night all of the students and faculty had a party where we chowed down on some finger food and wine, while representatives from each country sang an impromptu song, (I was part of an attempt at "When the Saints Go Marching In" sang by the five or six U.S. students). This morning I showed a few of my new classmates the places I had found near campus and took a quick but practical tour of Prague given by one of the teacher's assistants.
Thanks for tolerating my ramblings and poor punctuation skills, it means a lot to me that some people back home are taking even a passive interest in what I'm doing. From now on I'm going to try and write about my happenings every other day.