As I was thinking about what to write in this post, I realized that in a few days I will hit the 6 month mark from when I arrived in Prague. SIX MONTHS?!? How?? I am unable to believe that I've been here for that long... the old adage 'time flies when you're having fun' most certainly applies here! I guess the truth is that I haven't been 'here' for 6 months; probably about 1/3 of that time has been spent outside of Prague, between my 3-week trip in western Europe, my 10 days in Switzerland for Christmas, and all my various weekend trips to Berlin, Budapest, Krakow, Dresden, and elsewhere in the Czech Republic. Still, 6 months. Just crazy. Only 2 to go! I find myself struggling to remain 'present' and not think about the looming and quickly approaching date of my return flight home, because while I do look forward to seeing my family and friends in Canada again, it's hard to imagine leaving here. But enough on that subject! What has been happening since my last update?
1. Olympics -- In February there was a huge Olympic set-up in Letna park which overlooks the city. They had a skating track, a mini cross-country skiing course, a biathlon range, a curling rink, and a small trick park for snowboarders, along with a multitude of big screens broadcasting the Olympics. It was part of a campaign launched by the Czech Olympic Committee intended to promote healthy lifestyles, primarily in children. Hanna and I went one Saturday afternoon and rented skates and joined the crowds on the skating loop around the park. It was my first time skating in a while and it was great! I was impressed that the organizers were able to maintain the snow and ice because Prague itself had neither snow nor cold temperatures during the Olympics.
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| We happened to be passing one of the TV screens as Denny Morrison won a medal in speed skating for Canada! |
For the men's gold-medal hockey game we all convened at a pub for some Czech beer and grub and TV screens showing the game. And to top off a lovely afternoon, we won! (as everyone knows)
2. Soccer -- Something I tried and failed to do when I was last in Europe was to join a soccer team, but I have finally done it here! It's a soccer club near to where I live called FK Dukla, and since I haven't competitively played since high school, I'm pretty rusty so I've been training with the B-team. They're a bit younger than me but all really nice girls and I've enjoyed being part of a team and meeting more Czech people and of course playing soccer again!
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| The team at my first game (a friendly match luckily) a couple weekends ago. |
3. Ball -- At the end of February, a bunch of us attended our faculty's annual ball called Ples. I was not prepared for how fancy and dressed up everyone would get for it! It was held in a beautiful hall, and besides dancing on two different floors, there were performances every so often although we had no idea who the performers were or what was going on since everything was in Czech. A lovely evening though!
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| Myself, Kasia, Kasia and Juliette :) |
4. Berlin -- In December I bought two tickets for myself and Leah, a fellow student from my university in Canada who arrived in Prague in February to study for the second semester, to see OneRepublic in Berlin! The band did come to Prague but I didn't get tickets in time before the concert sold out so I opted for Berlin instead. I'd never been to the city so I figured that after seeing the concert we could make it a weekend thing and check the place out.
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| Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe |
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| Berlin Wall |
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| Currywurst! So delicious! |
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| Berlin Cathedral |
And of course, the main purpose of the visit: OneRepublic!!!! This was my first big concert and it was AMAZING! Words can't describe how excited I was the entire time. We didn't get there early enough to get front row spots, so we were off to the side but only a few people back from the stage so it wasn't bad at all!
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| So in love with Ryan Tedder (lead singer) now <3 He, and his band as well, were amazing live! |
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| East Side Gallery |
I forgot to mention, a few other people joined us for the weekend so it ended up being an 8-person trip instead of just the two of us, which was great! We did a tour of the city on our first full day there and saw all the main sights (and learned a LOT about Berlin and WWII), then on Saturday we visited the East Side Gallery (above) and the Olympic Stadium, which holds 70,000+ people!! That's like Nelson, my hometown, x 7 all in one place... crazy to imagine!
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| The group (minus David who had to go home early): L-R Colin, Leighanne, Juha, Leah, me, Tanja and Adriana |
On Saturday evening the girls did some serious damage at Primark, which is an Irish clothing retailer that sells incredibly cheap but really nice clothes! It was a good thing they closed at 9pm (we got there at 5:30..) because we could have stayed all night, although it was very stressful shopping because of the crowds! There's only 10 Primarks in Germany and fewer still in the surrounding countries (most are in the UK and Ireland) so people flock from far and wide for the deals!
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| Primark |
5. South Moravia -- This past weekend, me and 4 others girls from my program joined a trip with the ISC (International Student Club) and another university, CTU (Czech Technical University) to South Moravia, a region in the southeast of Czech Republic. While the weather was not as wonderful as it had been the previous week (sunny and upwards of 15 degrees!), it was still a great weekend with the girls! Here's some highlights:
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| Boat tour of Punkva caves, one of the five cave systems of the Moravian Karst open to the public |
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| Lednice chateau (the sun came out for a bit luckily!) |
The main event of the weekend was wine-tasting at a cellar in Mikulov, a small town near the Austrian border. It was everything I imagined it to be, and more! We were given a significant amount of wine in a short time period which I thought was abnormal for a wine-tasting event, where the aim is to avoid getting drunk in order to properly evaluate and taste the wines. All the wines were delicious though and we had a lot of fun so no harm done!
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| The wine cellar owner playing with fire and brandy. He was quite the character! |
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| 4/5 of our group (missing Leah)! L-R Teja, me, Leighanne and Solvei |
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| View from the tower of the Cathedral of St Peter and Paul in Brno |
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| Another view from Spilberk Castle in Brno |
Busy week this week with plenty of classes, birthdays, Czech food-making evenings, and a concert (Bastille tonight!!!!) The weather has been gorgeous the past couple weeks and so warm for the most part which is great. I have the temperatures of Prague, Nelson and Antigonish (my home university) on the top of my laptop screen and Prague's temperature is generally the same as in Antigonish, but without the '-' sign! Not complaining about our weather here at all!
Cheers,
Sonja
