My muscles no longer get sore after riding the public transportation. Martin, the talkative man at the local nut-stand, knows my exact order (half cup sliced almonds, half cup curry powder mixed nuts, and two Prague chocolate covered almonds!). And it’s becoming more and more rare I trip on the cobblestone sidewalks or as I get off the extremely fast paced escalator to the metro. I think I'm officially getting the hang of it. Now I've had the chance to see places outside the city.
I went to Cesky Raj with some friends, local Czechs and Belarusians. We took the bus about an hour outside of Prague then a taxi to the mountains for a big day of hiking. So funny to me to be in a little taxi winding on a dirt road through the forest in the outskirts of Prague with "Brown Eyed Girl" playing on the local radio station. It was freezing but we hiked all around and ate lunch at the top.
Another one-day trip was to Kutna Hora, known for its Sedlec Ossuary. Viktor and I took a train on Sunday to this ghost town (it was freezing and a Sunday; I'm pretty sure we saw four people the entire time). We followed railroad tracks to the Castle, had dinner at the cutest wooden medieval restaraunt, and checked out the Ossuary (made of 40,000 human bones from the 15th century).
My program also set up a one day excursion to Terezin, the last liberated Jewish working camp. We walked all over the olf fortress and through various museums.
Above- "arbeit macht frei" ="work sets you free".
We walked for 8 minutes in these tiny tunnels that wound all over underground the camp.
My favorite viewpoint from Prague is from the Klementinum Library. My friend Quincey and I actually stumbled upon it on accident. We were checking out the baroque Library, which is an ancient library opened in 1722 as part of the Jesuit University. We couldn’t take any pictures in order to preserve it but I added one from Google because it was so breathtaking. Continuing the tour we went through the Meridian Hall, which had all sorts of astronomical instruments, including a room used to determine noon be a tiny hole of sunlight in the 19th century.
The tour ended at the top with a spectacular 360 view of Prague.
Through networking back home, I was introduced to an extremely successful Czech Republic businessman, Glenn, who owns two fast food chains, a restaurant, jazz club, and the Museum of Communism. He's lived here for over 25 years starting up businesses and selling them. I gained a lot of insight listening to his story and received an internship here for my few months in Prague. I've been creating a program working with one of his fast food chains "Burrito Loco" to increase the cleanliness and work ethic by using under cover customers.
Every Tuesday is Nation to Nation, put on by our buddy system and any Erasmus/study abroad students as well as locals are invited. They have a different club location and theme each week- last week being American. We brought Oreos and peanut butter (and were basically the only international students that wanted to eat it).
I mostly go out with Czech locals which is super sweet because they know the cheapest and most interesting bars. All the pubs here are so fascinating because they go underground four or five floors and there are all different architectures depending on what century they were built in. A couple days ago I went to a place known for its big beers- 1 liter of beer for 40 cents.
Easter is a huge deal here in Prague and there is already a bunch of wooden booths set up near my tram station selling all sorts of yummy foods and Easter items.
So I'm a month in now and that basically sums up how things are going...
Oh wait..... I forgot to mention my university, minor detail ;)
I absolutely love my school; it's called the University of Economics and is a 25 minute tram commute from my flat. I'm taking two business classes, a Globalization and World Politics, and a Czech language course. I only have class Monday night, all of Tuesday, and Wednesday morning so Wednesday afternoon through Monday morning is obviously spent.... studying :) There are three sections to the school. The original building, the new building, and the paradise building, which was just built a couple years ago. All international students have their classes in the paradise building so I really lucked out with a brand spanking new school. People dress business casual to school which is definitely different from back home but it feels a lot more professional.
