My essay test this morning seemed to go well. We are all glad to have it behind us.

As I mentioned before, we’ve finished our first week of our economics class. It’s taught by Mike Veseth of the University of Puget Sound. He’s personable and a good lecturer. I would be interested to know more of his opinions on some of the economic ideas we discuss. Dr. Veseth has agreed to meet with me so that I can ask him questions about graduate school and how he balances teaching and academic writing. Dr. Veseth has been an important person in the relatively new field of International Political Economy. The IPE textbook he coauthored is a standard for introductory IPE classes. I’ve appreciated how aware he is of his students. It’s obvious that he works to keep up with the things we are doing with AIPES outside of our economics class. He weaves things like the hot water situation into his examples (even though he doesn’t live in our dorm).

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I’ve posted a second gallery of Prague photos. In this gallery you’ll see a little of how old and new mix in Prague. If you’re just joining us, you can catch gallery one here.

Both of our classes run for two weeks, overlapping for the middle week. Thus, tomorrow is the final exam for our politics class, and today we are all focused on preparing for it. Next week is our last week, when we will finish our economics class. Next week we will also be joined in Prague by students here for TFAS’s European Journalism Institute.

This week we added our economics class to the schedule, so I’ve been pretty busy trying to keep up with the academic load. Hence, the blog has fallen behind.

Sunday I had a chance to attend The International Church of Prague. The church meets in a Seventh Day Adventist church building about 25 minutes from my dorm. The church began as a Bible study meeting in the British and American embassies shortly before the fall of communism. After the Velvet Revolution this small group organized into a church.

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Saturday morning we had our first legislative simulation. My class was split into committees to draft legislation which will then be debated and put to a vote before the whole group. My committee was assigned to decide what the maximum punishment will be in our fictional country and when it will be used.

After the simulation our group was scheduled to go by bus to Plzen. Our plans changed and we went to a music festival in the very small town of Bechyně. A three piece jazz band played us into town in what was called “the parade.” Still and video journalists recorded our arrival, since our 111 students pretty much made the event. The festival was disappointing, but it was nice to get out of Prague and see some Czech countryside.

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When we arrived we received the finalized schedule for the institute. On Saturday, July 15, the schedule says **Hot Water Ends for 1 Week**.

Apparently in older buildings like our dorm there is some sort of hot water reservoir that must be changed every year. Naturally, they do it during the summer when the dorm is empty occupied by foreign students. So, this week our showers will all be cold showers! Last night I got my last hot shower and shave with the already waning hot water supply.

Last night AIPES rented a bowling alley in a large mall, and we had an institute-wide party to celebrate the end of our first week. It was lot of fun. I bowled some and got to know classmates and program staff better. I coached a Croatian who had never bowled before on technique, and he end up beating me. After bowling I went downtown with a group of students who weren’t interested in going to the clubs that most of the students were heading for.

On Monday afternoon my group went to Prague Castle. The castle is famous as the site of the “Defenestration of Prague” which started the Thirty Years War. I didn’t see the spot where the Catholic messengers were thrown from the window, but I may look for it if I go back.

Our Czech liaison for AIPES knows someone who works in the president’s office and was able to arrange for us to tour the State Rooms. Apparently this is a privilege not available to all visitors, and even our Czech students had not been in this part of the castle before. After touring the State Rooms we met with a young, but high level staffer to the President of the Czech Republic. He had good English and was enjoyable to listen to.

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Earlier I posted about the trucks I’ve seen driving around Prague spraying a mist of water. It turns out that those trucks are primarily used to keep the tram rails cool. When it hits a certain temperature in Prague they use the trucks to insure that the tracks don’t expand too much. The first truck I saw wasn’t driving above the rails as the others I’ve seen have been doing.

Tuesday after our guest lecture I went with a group of my classmates to the Museum of Communism on Wenceslas Square. The museum consists of only a few rooms, but they have plenty of interesting exhibits and information. The museum’s examples of Communist propaganda are audacious; its accounts of individual courage are inspiring. My time at the museum helped me better understand bits of Czech history that are often mentioned in passing but that I had never heard explained systematically. I still have a lot to learn, though.

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On Monday I had my first politics class with Dr. Lengle. Our class meets in the Charles University Economics Faculty (a classroom building) near Wenceslas Square. It take about 20 minutes to get there by subway from our dorm. Unfortunately, our lecture hall is unairconditioned and Prague has been hotter than usual this summer. Other than the temperature the Economics Faculty is a very nice setting to study in.

In class we’ve begun by building a model of a democratic state, which we will later apply to the United States. Our reading and discussion groups have also spent quite a bit of time in comparative studies. With so many countries represented in our group the information has a more personal dimension.

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Some photos from my first few days here.

In case you don’t get out much, the World Cup has been going on. I’ll confess I’ve not been riveted to the proceedings, but I’m perhaps the only person on this continent of whom that can be said. Since I’m in Europe I decided to join some classmates for tonight’s Germany-Portugal game. (The game times actually work in this time zone.)

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Today is the first day of our program, so the dorm has been abuzz with people registering and moving in. This evening we had our first meeting as a group. We ate supper together, then met for an orientation session. Matt, our program director, gave a brief history of TFAS and AIPES and then gave an inspirational talk on why we were in Prague.

When I officially registered this afternoon I received a booklet with bios of all of the participants. The students come from a wide variety of countries such as Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyszstan, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Romania, Georgia, and Moldova. We even have a student from Singapore.

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Having dispatched some of my initial chores in Prague, I went down to the old city for the first time yesterday. On the way downtown the tram follows a curving road that descends into the city. As we rounded a curve in the road I caught my first glimpse of the city. The vista was unexpected and exhilarating. I smiled as I saw the fabulous bridges, churches, shops, and squares below–all seemingly stacked on top of each other.

After taking care of one errand downtown, I spent most of the afternoon wandering the city. I’ve realized that photographing this city will be a challenge. There’s almost too much here to do it justice. To make things worse, sunrise is at about 5:00am, so getting morning light/solitude may not be feasible while taking classes.

On Tuesday, July 4, I left Greenville. After layovers in Atlanta and Duesseldorf I finally stepped off the plane in Prague at about 10:30am local time.

The dorm I will be living in is a straight shot from the airport. It’s right off the main road into town, so I was able to save a lot of money using mass transit rather than taxi. I’m a couple days early for my program, but the school is letting me rent the dorm room I will be staying in for these few nights. I deposited my bags in my room, glad that I won’t be carrying them again for almost a month.

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Two years ago I spent a summer studying and interning in Washington with The Fund for American Studies (TFAS). It was a tremendous experience, and I am excited to have another opportunity to study with TFAS this summer. The Fund’s purpose is to educate young leaders in the values of freedom, democracy, and free-market economies. It was begun to train American college students, but today runs programs in three foreign countries with plans for more.

My program, The American Institute on Political and Economic Systems, was begun in 1993 to take advantage of the opportunity created by the fall of communism. Students were brought to Prague and trained in democracy and free markets to prepare them to play a part in the dramatic transitions happening in their countries. Today the program still targets top Eastern and Central European students. Each year some students who are graduates of other TFAS programs are accepted, in part to help communicate the ideas TFAS champions. AIPES runs a little over a hundred students.

AIPES is organized through Georgetown University. We will receive Georgetown credits for our classwork. Our professors are Dr. James Lengle from Georgetown University and Dr. Michael Veseth from the University of Puget Sound.

More information about The Fund for American Studies and AIPES can be found on their websites.

Saturday evening I was scheduled to fly back to Greenville. As it turned out, my flight was delayed and then cancelled, but thankfully I was able to get on another flight out of Washington. Because of my changed itinerary I met my parents in Atlanta, where they had been for the weekend, rather than flying directly into Greenville. When I got home my bed was turned down just like the Hotel Monaco.

Thus ends a busy and enjoyable week. I don’t think I will be posting anything more unless I find that I have enough yet unseen photos to make a gallery. Thank you for your interest.

After our Friday afternoon activities wrapped up we had the night free. The students who didn’t have to leave town went out for supper. After being turned away by several classier restaurants because we didn’t have reservations, we settled down in one of my favorite Washington eateries, Five Guys Burgers.

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