Thoughts on European Culture

Being in Europe is obviously different than the US and I will share my thoughts.....

Man with frontal dog pouch... 2 Chihuahuas inside...

• People do not seem to mind B.O. I try not to stand next to anyone on the Metro holding the overhead hand rail...
• You have to pay for ketchup packets, like you really do.... and to-go boxes
• You have to pay to use the bathroom
• You have to ask for water at a restaurant and pay for it of course
• In order to bag your groceries you have to purchase a bag or bring your own
• PDA is a-OK hence the "kiss stations" on the metro lines (they really do say that on the metro maps lol)
• Beer is cheaper than water....
• Anything translated to English is iffy, "chicken meat" "roasted piglet" etc.
• Bread comes with everything here
• All people eat are bread and cheese.... Cheese is so cheap!! (mozzarella is $1!!)
• Everyone has a dog and no one uses a leash or cleans up their S*&^ on the sidewalks so watch your step
•  Czech people don't smile
• You can drink beer in class
• Open containers are juuuuussssstttt fine, does everyone have their to-go drink?!
• Smazeny Syr is fried cheese (basically a giant mozzarella stick) and its ok at any time of the day
• Absinthe is sold everywhere, but you have to get the REAL kind
• I am not ashamed to have been drunk on $2 boxed wine mannnnnny a night.... 
• We are living the dorm life/Real World and its so great
• There are more pubs than public bathrooms
• You can't get everything in one place, there's a paper store for anything paper, a drogerie for general things, lekarna for any medicine, even advil. Billa/Albert for groceries. Mini marts for your drunk indulgences
• The Czech Crown is awesome, screw the Euro...

More on this later....

Catching up, of course...

The Tent

So since I last wrote I had been looking forward to Oktoberfest, what a fun time. My roommates Bri, Melanie, Kim went as well as my friends Stefanie and Elyssa. We had a great group.... it all started on the bus ride, a relatively short one actually, about 5 hours with a few breaks along the way including a stop to a gas station where I looked at the pastries that were covered in fruit flies.... They are EVERYWHERE here. We arrived at 11:30 at night and found a place to stay called "The Tent" and it was literally a huge tent with tons of bunk beds in it, you get a number and you go find the coordinating bed and they also give you 4 wool blankets and thank GOD because it was freezing the night we got in. People underestimate how cold anything around 45-50 degrees is to sleep in....

We bought sleeping bags and I ended up sleeping in 2 sweatshirts, socks sweatpants then had my sleeping back and 4 blankets on top of me and didnt move all night. So we woke up the next day and figured out that Oktoberfest didn't start until Saturday and it was Friday.... rookie mistake. So we decided to walk around Munich for the day, which ended up being a great choice, it was my favorite day we had there. Munich is pretty modern, definitely not as beautiful as Prague though, well, nowhere is :) We went to a beer garden in a park that was super beautiful, we walked around it and a good sized river runs though a part of it and there are super tall trees shading most of the paths through it, we ended up at The Chinesischer Turm which is the most well known beer garden in Munich and its pretty neat.

In the Beer Garden Park, gorgeous little river

There was an outdoor buffet sort of place to eat that was serving typical German food, rotisserie chicken, sausage and hotdogs, these amazing "country potatoes" with cheese and onions ohhhh that was my favorite thing about Germany lol . There was a traditional band played in the hut every few minutes and we just sat in the park eating and drinking beer while enjoying the perfect weather, it was 

a great day. We then checked in to our second camp that we ended up staying in for 2 nights, Weisencamp.....

Chinese Hut

The story of Weisencamp.... oh boy. First of all, never stay there. We finally got out there, mind you this was a camp, 13 miles out of town in the middle of who knows where in Germany, it was an old, overgrown stadium filled with tents. Usually this would be kind of cool but under our circumstances, it wasn't. I am not normally a big camper but camping unprepared is even worse. Luckily we brought sleeping bags but no pads.... So sleeping on the ground was awful. We paid 50 Euro each (there were 3 of us in our tent) for 2 nights and all we got was a tent on the grass. It would have been fine had it not poured rain both nights we were there and the second night it poured so much so that water seeped through the bottom of the tent, there was a puddle on the inside of the tent because some drunk idiot fell into our tent in the middle of the (still raining) night and the rain fly came off on part of it so I slept in a puddle. All of my clothes were wet, I didn't bring any kind of boots so I was walking around at 7 in the morning when we left back to Prague in my soaking wet Toms, shorts because both pairs of my pants were wet from being in the tent puddle and I slept on top of my sweater so that was wet too. It was awful lol. F the rain I'm from Colorado!! 

Beer Tent

Crazy Rocket ship ride

The fun part though, the actual Festival.... So we woke up the morning of the fest and didn't actually leave the camp until 9:30am, we got there and kind of watched the parade amidst a sea of THOUSANDS of people.... You couldn't really even stand still unless you were street side where people weren't trying to push past so we didn't get to see much of the parade.... But we walked around on the side streets which was cool, Oktoberfest is a city in itself, there are 12 beer tents, and they aren't tents they are legit buildings, HUGE buildings filled with tables and decorations and stuff. ALL of them were full of people though, you literally had to be in 
 line at 5 in the morning to get a spot in the tent and you can't get a beer unless you are in a beer tent sitting at a table so that was something that would have been nice to know before but hey, I went for the experience of the 12 euro beer, crazy carnival rides and huge hotdogs. The only ride I went on (because it was 8 euro....) was this rocket ship one where you sit in the seats on either side of it and they flip the ships upside down as soon as you get on and then lift you up into the air while the whole thing spins. So as your barrel rolling on the rocket ship you are also spinning around like on the swing ride. It as fun, the carnival rides in Europe are nuts compared to US ones :) If each ride wasn't so expensive I would have gone crazy! 


My roommates got a little drunk while we were there, we met up with them and this is what I got... ;)

Love all of my roomies haha

Sometimes we just need to take a little nap and not go on the rides :)

More Shenanigans from across the world....

So this week has been all sorts of fun, in my travels I found a pool that seemed interesting so we went on a quest to find it..... The Podoli pools are a few Olympic sized swimming pools both indoor and outdoor set at the base of a huge hill and across the street from the river. We took the metro and got off, and ended up walking through a big park which eventually took us off the path onto the hillside which was full of well used trails so we figured, why take the road down the hill when we can figure out how to get down by way of the trails....

View of Podoli from the hillside 

 

 

 

As we were walking along these trails through sometimes thick brush, we stumbled upon small grassy meadows.... full of nude men... Apparently this is the spot to tan for the gay population of Prague because we probably saw at least 15 guys soaking up the sun in their birthday suits...

One of the hillside trails

 The pool was a fun time, the water was pretty warm and the pools were 15 feet deep which was cool since I am used to apartment complex pools that don't seem to be deeper than 4 feet... A little note on this pool... you get a ticket to scan and then go through the turn-style, KEEP that ticket! I lost mine and ended up having to pay to get out, the lady wouldnt let me leave without paying 60kc (about $3) (after I already paid 90kc($5) to get in! AND I didn't have exact change, just a few big bills that she wouldnt break them so I had to ask people for change lol.

Bachelor #1

Bachelor #2

Other interesting things in my travels....

Bachelor Parties in Prague- wearing costumes, asking to measure 'breast size' with a tape measure haha









We went on a pubcrawl which was fun, we went to the  'pregame' they host before it starts and you get to drink all of the watered down gross alcohol and cheap beer that you want.... yeah... its about as good as it sounds lol. Then you proceed as a huge drunk heard, led by Clara and now my roommate Kim works there too, to a bunch of bars.

Pub Crawl: 4 of 5 roomies- Melanie, Bri, Kim and I

Free Haircuts in the hall are fun, everyone sits on the stairs drinking and talking while someone plays guitar and Ellie and Matty give free haircuts :)

Bratislava! Not much to do there, we went by train on Thursday afternoon after our Czech language final. Stayed in the Film Hotel in 'Bruce Willis', saw the UFO tower, went to a sketch bar near a bus station, saw a castle and thats about all thats in Bratislava....

Getting Settled... The first week

So, trying to keep up with this is going to be a task but I promised I would do it so here is the scoop from the past week...


Many of the people in our program didn't get their visas on time so this has been a big concern... The process for getting the visa when you are already here is quite a process.... we have to send them to our program director in Nevada who will then send them to LA because apparently the consulate won't accept it if it's sent from out of the country... so when they receive all of the passports in LA they will be sent BACK to Czech to finish the visa process, then sent all the way back to LA where they will be shipped back to Nevada and our director has to send them back here to us... Its ridiculous that you cant just go to the embassy here to finish it. A lot of people didn't get their visas so it wasn't just me... probably like 25 people... mostly from the LA consulate too, I guess the other ones have it together and LA=fail.

Club Roxy(?) lol Roomies are the 3 to my left

Otherwise this week has been a dream, I have made so many new friends since we have 50 people to get to know over the course of the semester and getting to know each person so far has been amazing. I have been making connections from all over the states with all of these new friends. It's neat to experience this crazy new situation with all of these people because were all here for the same reason, to be outside of our comfort zones, to see the world, to make new friends and party like crazy. I am pretty sure being here brings out the best and most fun side of people. We have gone out every night and had a great time hopping from bar to club to just drinking in the park or in our hallway on the stairs.

My days here have been all about exploring, its weird to me that some people will spend the day hungover and sleeping and then just go out at night all over again... I make myself get over the hangover and go outside and wander the city. This place is amazing and I have been discovering new places every day, I've seen the Castle, so many different churches, spent time in Petrin Park which is a mythical forest in some parts and a meadow full of different fruit trees in another.
 We met a new Czech friend, Clara,  in Old Town Square one day who ended up walking us around and showing us tons of different places. She is a Czech citizen but went to high school in Oregon, you would never know she was Czech unless you heard her speak it but she sounds American as can be- She is such a great resource and a super nice person, so glad we met her!

Apples from Petrin Hill

Crazy long/fast escalators in the metro stations... They take you to the depths of the earth....

Being here, to me, has been such a shock, I am learning about 50 new people from all over the states and its interesting to hear about their ways of life and how they do things. I have met many people that are so different from me and accustomed to such a different way of life that I have ever known. Weve got people who are spoiled to no end and on no budget, there are super laid back people, very opinionated square people, party-ers, players, lovers and then there are my close friends :) This experience is so new and I cant wait to share more! Coming soon.... Thoughts about Czech food, people and culture


Off to explore some more!