Remamarkable Weekend in Prague and Dresden (7)

Wow.  That’s all I can really say about this weekend.  It was such a great experience!  We spent Thursday, Friday, and Sunday in Prague, and Saturday in Dresden, Germany.  Although a few of the other students and I had already went to Prague the weekend before our program began, it was still an amazing weekend.  We saw so much more of the city than we previously had!  We were also able to learn tons more about the history and culture of this ancient city.  While we were there this weekend we were able to see the Charles Bridge, the Prague Castle, the Prague Astronomical Clock (which was used as the clock in the filming of the Harry Potter movies) the Petrin Lookout Tower, the Prague Jewish Museum and Cemetery, and many other places.  The history behind each of these places is incredible. Charles Bridge and the castle were without a doubt the most stand out places that we visited; words cannot describe them.  The Jewish Museum and Cemetery were the most eye-opening places, yes everyone knows the holocaust happened and that it was bad, but when you begin to experience the effects of it first-hand you begin to realize how truly devastating, disgusting, and evil it really was.  Visiting the museum was a small piece to what we are seeing pertaining to the holocaust, later we will see the concentration camp, Auschwitz, which I’m sure will be a life changing experience.  On Friday we toured Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle and had about half of the day to explore the city on our own.  Our free afternoon went something like this… got lost, couldn’t find anywhere to eat, and walked over 10 miles.  However, that afternoon was by far my most favorite part of my trip so far.  We found a monastery, which had an incredible view of the city, and eventually found a fantastic pizzeria, which turned out to be one of the best meals that I have had so far!  We also went to the Petrin Lookout Tower, which looks like a miniature Eiffel Tower, and got an amazing view of the city, the river, the mountains, and the storm in the background which ending up causing a rainbow over the city.  It was a truly amazing view. 

On Saturday, we left Prague early in the morning to travel by train to the city of Dresden, in Germany.  During WWII, Dresden was completely destroyed by bombs from the Allied Forces, and since then it has been rebuilt into a thriving city.  Many of the old buildings were reconstructed using as much of the original building as possible, and I think that these buildings are by far some of the best ones that we have seen so far.  Since these buildings had to be rebuilt, they now have much better lighting, have elevators, have heat, and provide for a much better experience, all while allowing you to still experience their astonishing history.  I absolutely loved Dresden, the only thing that I didn’t like was how little time we had in the city, as we had to leave for Prague again on the five o’clock train back to Prague.  I really wish I could have experienced this city and German culture more, but it will be alright as I will be going to Berlin for four days over our Spring Break later this month.  

While I do not think that the pictures that I’m posting are bad, they really pose no justice to how breathtaking these places really are. 

Moravia, Witches, and Vampires (2)

I'm studying in the birthplace of the legend of vampires.  I suppose that's kinda cool isn't it?  Today we had a lecture about witch hunts, vampires, the Black Death, and the old Catholic Church, and it’s really interesting how all of those topics tie in together.  I always knew that witch hunts used to actually happen, but I never really knew on how large of a scale they took place.  Beginning in the 17^th century, 50,000-60,000 people were burned at the stake as “witches”, with groups of these “witches” sometimes exceeding over 100 people.  However, after the witches were burned, the villagers then had to worry about them turning into vampires, as vampires could only come from witches that had rose from the grave. Moravia, the region of the Czech Republic where Olomouc located, was the place where people first started to believe in vampires, and I am told that some places and some events that took place here made it into the book Dracula.  It was really a very interesting lecture. 

The classes that we are taking here are without a doubt the most interesting classes that I have ever had in my life. I can honestly say that I have learned more since I have been here than in years of being back in America.  Not only am I learning things in class, but also literally everywhere I go.  Our classes are set up in a unique format, we have one over basic Czech language, another which is entirely based on blogging, and the other class is a collection of different lectures, from several different lecturers, on many different topics.  Over the last few days we have learned a lot about US foreign policy, the European Union, and NATO.  While I wouldn’t consider topics like these as boring, I never really thought that I would think of this type of stuff as super interesting, but honestly I think I could take years of classes like this and never get tired of it.  It's very interesting to see first-hand how things like WWII, communism, and the Soviet Union / Russia, still have huge impacts on life today.  Back home I really never would have thought of these topics as something that are still really impacting life, but after coming here I can see that without a doubt these topics still have a HUGE effect on today’s life.  All of our different lecturers have put a pretty big emphasis on the actions of Russia and how there are so many parallels to what is happening now to what happened during WWII and the Cold War.  It’s actually very unnerving, and you can tell that all of these unbelievably intelligent professors have the same consensus about how Putin and Russia are becoming a huge threat for this region and for the rest of the world.  When our professors talk about this topic you can sense that they have a true sense of fear about what is happening, and I really think that Americans should start taking this much more seriously than we currently are.

                Tomorrow morning my classmates and I will be taking a weekend field trip to Prague, and Dresden, Germany.  Keep posted for more in the next couple of days!

Cultural Comparisons (5)

I'm going to be completely honest and say that there is no possible way that I can possibly describe the difference in culture here in the Czech Republic compared to that of the United States.  I will say that it is definitely something that everyone should experience though.  It's a lot like America in some ways, but CRAZY different in others.  An obvious difference is that the people here for the most part don't really speak English, they speak Czech.  Also, the food is completely different here... I'm still not sure how I feel about it.  Some of it is incredibly delicious, the only problem is you have to know what you're ordering, and when you can't read or speak Czech that can be a major problem.  A lot of the restaurants, bars, and cafés have a menu or a description of the items in English, but the description can sometimes be very difficult to understand.  Another cultural difference is that people walk or take public transportation EVERYWHERE. That's a huge difference compared to back home, as I even sometimes drive to my classes that are about two blocks away.  Some people do drive here, but it appears that it is mostly only the wealthy or the upper working class.  To compare the traffic here to back home, my city of Olomouc has a population of roughly 100,000 people; however, the traffic is much better here than in my hometown of North Platte, a town of only about 25,000 people.

Another major cultural difference is that people are much less religious here.  As said by one of the leaders of my program, in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, roughly 80% of the people identify themselves as non-religious. That is a tremendous difference compared to my state of Nebraska, where I would estimate that 60-70% of people are fairly religious.

Lastly, another major difference here is the obvious toll that communism took on this incredible nation.  Although communism rule ended here in 1989 with the Velvet Revolution, its effects can still be seen in many places.  Many of the buildings look like scenes that would appear in a movie about the Soviet Union, and there are many other small things that just make you realize that this country was once ruled under a communist government.  It is obvious that at one time communism had completely devastated this nation, as the effects can still be seen today.  With this being said, I absolutely love this amazing country with its intriguing history and its extraordinary culture.  Although I have only been in this country for a week, I can honestly say that I have learned more in this one week than I have in YEARS back living in America.  It is truly an eye opening experience to travel to and to live in another country and I strongly encourage anyone and everyone to do it at some point in their life.  Not only will you learn so much about the history and culture of the world, but you will learn so much about yourself and gain a much deeper appreciation for so many things that are taken for granted.  

Here are some pictures that I have taken over the last few days of my trip.

 

 

Arrival in Olomouc

We finally arrived at our school in Olomouc!  We met a representative from our school, Palacký University, at 2:30 pm at the Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague.  Our journey was about 174 miles, but it took us about 3-4 hours on the bus to arrive in Olomouc.  The road system here is quite different than that of the United States.  Instead of the highways going directly from point A to point B, the roads here curve to accommodate the many different towns and cities along the route. I have never appreciated the interstate system of the United States more!  It was a very interesting and beautiful drive though, it is so different from America!  The weather right now is kind of comparable to that of Oregon or Washington and there are a lot of green fields and pine tree forests along the route.  There were also a lot of towns and cities along the way, and the architecture of the buildings is so incredible!  Many of the buildings appear to very old, and many of them remind me of what you would see in a movie about the communist Soviet Union.  However, many of the buildings have obviously been remodeled or completely rebuilt since the end of communist rule and they are built using a modern arhiteture style.  It is so interesting seeing so many different styles of architecture right next to each other.  I am absolutely loving the difference in culture.

Some other things that I found interesting about the Czech Republic is how popular KFC is here. They are EVERYWHERE!  Something else that really grabbed my attention is that McDonald's are actually good here.  I absolutely despise McDonald's back home, and I very rarely will ever eat there.  We have ate at McDonald's twice since being here, as they are pretty common and fairly cheap.  They are so much nicer than they are back home!  And some of them even have a coffee shop inside of them, called McCafé, and they are set up to be kind of like a Starbucks.  One additional thing that's different here is that you have to pay for ketchup and other condiments!  It costs 6 koruna, or about 23 cents.  And that's just for one ketchup packet!  I guess my days of eating my fries with an ungodly amount of ketchup are over.

We got moved into our rooms today, and somehow I lucked out and got a room to myself!  However, unfortunately, I do not have any American suite-mates.  I've only met one of them, a Syrian, but I did find out I also have another suite-mate from Manchester, England, and I think I have two other ones as well.  My apartment style dorm, or as we call it, a flat, doesn't appear to be very sociable... hopefully I am wrong though.  I don't think I'll really be spending too much time in my room though other than sleeping so everything should be okay if its not too sociable.  So far I am really liking it here, but it is definitely different than being back home.  

Lost Baggage and Stress

"I'm just happy everything has went so smoothly so far."  I said this in my last post, and I'm sad to say that everything has NOT gone smoothly.  Unfortunately, our flight from Atlanta to Paris was was late getting in, and its departure was delayed for about an hour.  This gave us 30 minutes to navigate the massive Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, and our terminal was on the opposite side of the airport.  Once we arrived at Charles de Gaulle we had to get through security an additional two times, where they gave me a complete pat down, and then we had to get our passports stamped and then proceed to the shuttle to take us to our terminal.  Needless to say we missed our flight to Prague.  We then had to talk with an airport assistance lady and she booked us our flight to Prague free of charge since it was Delta's fault for us missing our flight. We also got to sit together which was a lot better than being scattered throughout the plane.  She also gave us free meal vouchers for up to 8 euros, which would only buy us a weird sandwich on an incredibly hard baguette.  Finally we boarded the plane for Prague.  Once we arrived we went to go get our luggage, and as we suspected it wasn't there.  We figured that it would have been on the normal flight so we went to the baggage help desk to see if we could pick it up there.  Unfortunately, for some reason our bags weren't on the earlier flight and we were told that they should be coming on a later flight and would be delivered to our hostel.  Sometime during the middle of the night they brought Tess and Emily's bag to our room.  Notice I said Tess and Emily's bags, mine was NOT delivered and still has NOT been delivered.  I had to call Delta/Air France this morning to try and figure out where my bag is, but I was told they actually have no idea where its at.  I was instructed to fill out another form so that I could be allowed a $50 allotment per day for expenses incurred from not having my bag.  So after I got off the phone I got online to fill out the form, and the claim number they gave me wouldn't work!  I'm now getting ready to go to the phone and sort this out... wish me luck!  At this point I'm just really hoping that I can get my stuff back.

Also, on a more exciting note, last night was our first night in Europe!  Although we definitely had a pretty terrible Friday the 13th, we decided that we would make the best of our situation and still try and have a good night.  We ate a delicious European burger at the restaurant /nightclub in our hostel and we also ordered our first drinks, jägerbombs!  The night was a lot of fun and we met a lot of really cool people from all around Europe, but I decided it was time for bed around midnight since I was exhausted from traveling for 24 hours and dealing with the luggage situation.  I woke up this morning around 9 to try and get my baggage situation figured out, and that's pretty much all I've gotten accomplished today.  Lets hope that I get my bag before we leave for Olomouc tomorrow afternoon.  

Let the journey begin!

Tess, Emily and I are currently on an airplane from Omaha to Atlanta, where we will then have a connecting flight to Paris and then to Prague.  Thank god for in-flight wifi!  I've never flown from Omaha but it was by far the friendliest airport I've ever been to.  My checked bag was supposed to have a weight limit of 50 pounds, and it weighed 53 pounds and they didn't charge me an extra fee! Also my carry-on bag was WAY to big to fit their requirements, but they still let me take it! I'm not really sure how my carry-on was so much bigger than it was supposed to be, I measured it probably four different times at home and it fit the size requirements perfectly.  I'm just happy everything has went so smoothly so far.  Saying goodbye to everyone back home for so long was super weird, especially for my parents, my brother Sam, my girlfriend Jess, and my best friends Charley and Erik.  I'm so ready to get to Prague, 23 hours of traveling (including time changes) is waaaay too much time for me to be spending in airplanes and at airports.  I am so excited to get there and start this amazing journey!

Travel Plan

On Thursday at this time I will be beginning the experience of a lifetime in Prague in the Czech Republic.  I am so freakin' excited!  I can't even begin to explain how ready I am.  I'm definitely going to be missing my parents, girlfriend, and friends, and its really going to take some time getting used to not being able to see anyone from back home.  Nonetheless, I am still super eager to get started with this awesome chapter of my life that's about to begin.  I'll be traveling with twenty-three other students from Nebraska, with two of them being some of my best friends from Kearney.  I still have a few things that I need to get done before I leave, but for the most part all of the preparation is done already.  I'm so ready to be done with getting everything ready! Some parts of the trip are going to be planned once we get over there, like our spring break and weekend trips.  We do have some of the trips planned out already though, and the places we are going for sure include:

          -Prague, Dresden, and Bohemia in the Czech Republic
          -London, England
          -Budapest, Hungary
          -Venice, Italy
          -Vienna, Austria
          -Auschwitz, Germany
          -Krakow, Poland

Some other trips that we don't have planned out yet but are hoping to be going on include:

          -Dublin, Ireland
          -Amsterdam, Netherlands
          -Berlin, Germany
          -Paris, France
          -Croatia

Hopefully everything will go smoothly and according to plan!