Week Two: Prague

This weekend we took a trip with the whole group to spend three nights in Prague.  Since this was my second trip to Prague, I knew where I was going a lot better than the first time I was there.  The first day (Thursday) we went on a tour around the city and saw all of the main tourist attractions.  When I was in Prague the first time I saw all of the tourist spots, but I didn’t go on a guided tour so it was nice to hear some of the history about the city.

            We woke up early on Friday morning and toured the Prague Castle and the St. Vetus Cathedral.  We had to walk up a long flight of stairs to get to the castle and it showed how out of shape we all were since we were all tired by the time we made it to the top.  The outside of the church was dark and gothic style, while the inside was much more elegant, and you could tell how much work people used to put into the atheistic beauty of their churches.  I feel like new churches that are made today aren’t nearly as extravagant as that one was.

St. Vetus Cathedral in Prague

            We woke up early again on Saturday and got on a train to Dresden, Germany.  Dresden was one of the last places bombed in World War II, so a lot of the city was destroyed and rebuilt.  Because of the reconstruction, a lot of the city looked more modern and more like the US.  There was a huge cathedral that was bombed, but the city rebuilt it along with all of the buildings around it to recreate the city center.  We went to the top of the cathedral and could see the entire city, witch was majestic.  We went through a museum that showed old Turkish weapons and armor along with very old forms of currency.  The oldest forms of coins were from the 12^th century and looked like a piece of leather with a stamp on it.  Jan and Martin (our tour guides) walked around with us in the museums and I was amazed that they knew so much information about every room that we walked into.

            Sunday we walked back up to St. Vetus Cathedral for the church service.  The service was all in Czech language, so I didn’t really know what was going on, but it was still interesting.  There is no form of heat in the church so it was freezing inside and everyone was ready for the service to be over.  I think most of the people who attended were tourists, because it didn’t look like many people knew when they were supposed to stand up or sit down.  After church we went to the old Jewish Ghetto and went through a few old synagogues.   One of the synagogues had the names of all of the Jewish people who lived in Checlosovokia who were killed by the Nazis.  There was an old Jewish cemetery that had so many gravestones that they were all on top of each other.  Jan and Martin said that there were seven or eight layers of graves on top of each other because they didn’t have enough land so they just had to stack the bodies on top of each other.

            I think Prague will always hold a soft spot in my heart because it was the first European city that I was ever in.  The city is full of history and there is always something going on to do there.  My favorite view of the city is the Prague Castle behind the Charles Bridge at night.  Although I really like Prague, it also makes me miss Olomouc.  Prague doesn’t give us a real feel of the culture of Czech Republic since it is so full of tourists.

Prague streets packed with people

Week One Post

I finally made it to Czech Republic!  I arrived in Prague last Thursday evening, where I stayed for a few days before coming to Olomouc on Sunday.  I flew over with another student who is in the program and neither of us had any idea how to leave the airport.  After a few busses and a few subway rides we finally made it to the apartment where we were staying.  Prague was the first foreign city I have ever been to, so it was a lot different than anything I am used to.  In the few days we were in Prague, we walked around and saw all the cites, and met up with some other kids in our program.  Luckily the jetlag didn’t last too long, I was back to my normal schedule in just a few days.

Once we arrived in Olomouc on Sunday night we moved into our dorms and unpacked.  The first few days we walked around the city and had a few guided tours showing us both historical and practical things, like how the trams work.  We have ate out for every meal so far, other than a few breakfasts, but the food here is really cheap.  Most meals are around $5 including a drink.  Water seems to be the most expensive drink you can order, so hardly any of us are drinking that.  The food is really good here, I really like the traditional Czech quinine.  One of my favorite dishes that I have ordered is Schnitzel, which is like chicken fried steak with potato salad.  When we don’t have much time to spend eating, we stop and get kebabs which are superb.

One of our classes is a Czech language class, and it is way harder to pick up than I thought it would be.  I learned some basic phrases, like “thank you” before classes started, but that is still all I know.  Letters are pronounced differently here and there are a lot of different accent marks that make the letters sound different as well.  I feel like none of us are going to be able to learn that much Czech while we are here.

There aren’t many people in Olomouc who can speak English, mainly just younger kids.  A lot of the restaurants here only have menus in Czech, so it can be difficult to know what to order.  Sometimes you can get lucky and have a waiter/waitress who can speak a little bit of English, but other times you have to just point at a dish and hope for the best.

I can definitely tell a big difference between the people here and the people back home in Nebraska.  People here aren’t as friendly, and just rush right past you without looking at you.  It is very rare to see someone smiling when they are walking down the street, and we have been told that is only an American thing to smile for no reason.  There are crosswalks but most people just walk out into the street wherever they want to cross and cars slam on their brakes.

Old Town Square in Prague