A Freckle in Time: October 2013

Much has happened in the past two weeks here in the capital of the Czech Republic! I had my 6-day Turistika and Outdoor Sports course in southern Czech Republic, I went SKYDIVING (!), I had my first real week of class, and I went on a day-trip bike tour outside of Prague, (and if I'm being completely honest also a lot of partying and meeting people)! There are so many events taking place on every day of the week in this city that it is easy to keep busy and having fun.

So, to begin, here are some pictures from the Turistika course:

The group trekking 1.5km from the bus stop to where our course would take place

Ovčín, the headquarters of the Turistika course, where we met and had our meals every day

A short bike ride through the country side on our first afternoon there. This is my friend Laura from Germany!

It was a fabulous week altogether. We had really nice weather for the first 4 days, if a little chilly, but that allowed us to go on bike excursions, walks through the forest, climbing activities on the many ropes courses set up around the course grounds, orienteering, and many other games and problem-solving activities outside. Our group was 14 students and 2 instructors from our faculty in Prague. The nationalities present included 7 students from Spain, 3 from France, 2 from Turkey, 1 from Germany, and me from Canada! It was a great group, and I think we all really enjoyed getting to know each other and learning little tidbits of all the different languages and cultures present!

The course was not overly challenging physically, aside from the parcour climbing course which I found quite difficult, but I got the chance to try many different activities, games or sports that either I have never tried or don't do very often (especially here in Prague). Some highlights for me were our biking trip around the area and orienteering in a nearby forest.

We started off our first full day there with a variety of trust games and icebreakers to get some group cohesion happening. The week also included two short lectures about the concept of Turistika (hard to put into words but basically it's a Czech idea that combines physical movement, cultural learning, and professional knowledge or skills, and also involves the dense network of marked trails in this country which is actually really impressive), and outdoor games. We also did a bunch of activities following maps, and we watched a famous Czech movie filled with interesting Czech humour (the name escapes me right now..).

Biking in the peaceful south Bohemian countryside

I couldn't believe how beautiful this place was!

Trails through the forest

Running out of comments about how beautiful it was here!

The scenic route home from Trebon, a small town about 25km away, which we biked to on one of our afternoons

One of our afternoon activities was making our own dinner, but not the usual way. This was called Seton Pot, and it was created by a man named Seton for an unorganized movement called tramping (camping and living in nature) in order to make meals in the wilderness. We salted and spiced 4 chickens and stuffed them with chopped veggies, then wrapped everything up in tinfoil and stuck it in a hole in the ground along with rocks heated by our campfire.

Daniel, Isa and Albert preparing the chickens and veggies.

One of our two leaders from the week, Tomas, putting dinner into the 'oven'

The final product! It was actually really delicious!

On another afternoon, we divided into three teams and set off on foot for our own respective towns each located a few kilometres away. We had a list of tasks to complete, which included taking a group picture with the sign of the town name:

My team consisting of Vasif (Turkey), Isa (Spain), Baptiste (France), Oscar (Spain) and me!

And hugging an animal:

The kind family at this farm let us hold their rabbit and chicken, after we unsuccessfully tried to catch a chicken ourselves...

On the second last day, we had to cross this 'monkey bridge', which was quite fun and a little challenging as you have to shuffle along a cable and hold onto another rope above your head. No one fell in the river thank goodness!

The last evening of the week, we formed short skits in our village scavenger hung groups about some event that had taken place during the week, then performed them for the rest of the group. Here, Laura and Guillaume (middle) are acting as Tomas and Lucy, our leaders for the week, while Daniel (right) is 'late' for a meeting and must perform a song or dance typical to his country of origin. Lots of laughs!

And the high point of the week (literally though), was the high log! Each of us climbed up the ladder on the right side of the following picture, while harnessed into a rope like they use for rock climbing. Then we had to cross the log to the tree on the other side, turn around, come back to the middle, and jump down. It had been raining so the log was a bit slippery and there were a few falls but most people were successful in crossing it. I found it quite challenging mentally (we all know we can walk in a straight line but it's harder to be calm about it when you're 12 metres off the ground with nothing to hold on to), and the walk back to the middle was tricky because it was slightly uphill.

In the zone

The last event of the week was flying our kites, although unfortunately the wind was not cooperating with us, but it was still fun!

Laura with our Canada-Germany cross cultural flag (note the German-coloured bows on the tail)

The following day, back in Prague, I went SKYDIVING! Crazy right?! I decided to sign up for it about 4 days prior to the actual event. It was organized through a friend of a friend of a friend, so I wasn't totally sure it would actually work out, but it did, and it was the COOLEST experience EVER! There were 11 of us altogether (9 guys and Laura and I), so we went up in the planes in 3 groups of 4 (I was in the first group, not by choice but I was glad about it afterwards!) It was a tandem jump so I was with a professional which was comforting. We free-fell for about 60 seconds then the parachute opened and we cruised slowly back to the ground for about 5 minutes. I paid a bit extra to have a video and pictures taken, which in hindsight is totally worth it! Great memories to have on film, although nothing can replicate what I was feeling as we jumped out of the plane. It was unreal! My only criticism of the event was that I found it hard to breathe as we were hurtling towards the earth at 180km/h (understandable for sure), and I remember thinking that I hoped I would make it to the end of the 60 second free fall before I ran out of air! And of course I did. What a day!

That night Laura and I went out for a celebratory we-survived-skydiving dinner, and I had one of my favourite Czech dishes so far: meat accompanied by bread dumplings with gravy, cranberry sauce and cream. This restaurant prepared it very well and it was delicious! I'm still getting used to how rarely there are vegetables on any of the main Czech dishes... Very different from Canadian cuisine for sure!

I had my first real week of classes this past week, and it went quite well! I enjoyed my Spanish and Czech language courses, as I have always enjoyed learning languages, and my sport courses were also fun (swimming and tennis). The only other class I had this week was sport psychology which was interesting although I had already learned some of the material that we covered, but I really enjoy the subject so I don't mind. This coming week I will have Sport Biomechanics and Sport Massage which are both every other week and I'm looking forward to them.

On Saturday of this weekend I signed up for a cycling trip outside of Prague to the east of the city. It was a lovely day, with a great group of 11 people from all sorts of countries including Moldova, the US, and Cyrus. Some of the trails that we biked on were absolutely stunning and surrounded by amazing fall colours, and we had the perfect weather for such an event. During the day we stopped at various historical landmarks, including the cottage where the famous Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal lived for 30 years, as well as a pub for lunch and another pub in Nymburk where we tasted the beer from the local brewery.

It was so beautiful on some of the trails that we took! I almost crashed or slipped in the mud several times because I would be staring around at the scenery and not watching where I was going.

A good portion of the trek was by the side of the Alba river, very picturesque!

Our final destination: Nymburk. What a beautiful town!

Upon our return to Prague in the evening, a few of the group remained in the city centre to check out the signal festival that was taking place in various locations around the centre of Prague from October 17-20. The show on the Divadlo Hybernia wasn't overly exciting:

But at Namesti Miru, the light show went above and beyond! It was so amazing I stayed to watch it a second time (it was on a loop that lasts about 10 minutes and repeats ever 15 minutes or so). It's amazing what they created using light and sound.

The church in the centre of the square where they projected the light show.

Another attraction of the festival was the two 'eyes' at either end of the Charles Bridge. Creepy, but kind of cool at the same time! The eyes were moving around and 'looking at you' just like a normal eye, although this one was also on a loop:

Well, my apologies for the ridiculous length of this post, but I wanted to share all my activities from the past two weeks! Hope you enjoyed it!

Sonja :)

Well, it has been exactly two weeks since my first full day in Prague (the majority of which I spent napping due to jet lag..). Somehow, it feels like I have been here for much longer than that, as I have learned sooooo much in this short period of time, mainly about big city life but also quite a lot about myself as a person. It has been a major adjustment settling in here, and while it hasn't all been sunshine and daisies, I have met so many great people from all over the world and already had a lot of fun, so it is totally worth it!

This first post (in a while) will be quite short as I should really be sleeping right now before I have to get up at 4:45am to catch a 7am bus to the south of the country for a 6-day-long 'Turistika and Outdoor Sports' course. Who sleeps before a big adventure anyways??

Here are some of my random observations from these past fourteen days, interspersed with a few photo highlights:

--NO PEANUT BUTTER!!! :( Well, maybe there is peanut butter but I can't find it!

The courtyard of my faculty (where I also live, in the dorms on the right side of this picture)

--There are so many variations to everyday items in the supermarket that I am never really sure what I am buying..

The lovely park across the road from where I live that is FILLED with trails! Happy Sonja :)

--I don't know how I ever survived tree planting for 8 or more hours of the day, and for 3 months too! Simply being in this city is exhausting. I'm not sure if it's the necessary 30 minutes by transit to get even close to anywhere, or the crowds of people on the streets, or my inability to understand Czech, or maybe the combination of it all, but this weekend I got worn out just by taking transit for 45 minutes and watching a soccer match.

One of my favourite Czech goodies so far: trdelnik. From what I gather it is spiralled bread covered in sugar = YUM!

--In another dorm (not mine thankfully), you have to supply your own toilet paper.. this is a building similar in style to residences at my university back in Canada, where we are most definitely provided with toilet paper. Not in that dorm apparently though!

Typical Czech buildings

--The Czech language. It's scary. That is all.

Last Sunday I went to Kutna Hora, a city about 70km east of Prague. It used to be a bustling silver mine, so we did a tour of the mine as well as the large church that dominates the town. 'Twas a lovely day!