June 5, 2012

Today we met downstairs at 8.00 AM thinking that we were going to go on a bike tour and found the weather to be cold and raining.  Not too many of us were ready to go on a 3 hour bike tour in the rain.  Seeing as the internet at the Sonata Hotel is the best we have had so far, Anoop decided to give us a free day.  From my research I found a building in Prague called the Amazon Court which is a carbon neutral building, which is my thesis topic.  I went by myself to check out the building and let me tell you, it was pretty impressive.  The outside does not look like anything special, just a cement box of a building.  I somehow got past security by not speaking Czech, and the inside of the building was incredible.  There were small ponds in the middle of the floor, open roof, and intricate architectural designs within the building.  I have an interview set up with some of the architects that worked on Amazon Court; I just thought it would be cool to see myself.  I walked back over towards Charles Bridge; I wanted to see the street vendors in full force.  There were a good bit of vendors out and I got a little shopping done today.  I walked about 30 minutes back to the hotel and studied a little for our test at 4.00.  We had our second test and then I met with Professor Tatum to discuss my thesis.  I am doing alright with my research gathering but I really need to start getting these interviews finished with.  We were told to meet up at 6.00 to go get a beer as a group.  We went to Budweiser Buduar which is the oldest brewery in the Czech Republic.  They had some really good beer and we ate dinner here as well.  Brady, Jack, and I had the meat platter with sausage, ham, and something else (I honestly couldn’t tell you what it was).  Afterwards we stayed as a group and went to a local pub we found earlier.  We stayed there for a little while and called it a night.  We have an early morning tomorrow.

T