I was in Rome a few weekends ago and the city is amazing. Trevor and Lucas from New York and Kristian from Denmark traveled with me. The flight was cheap and short, just under two hours. We arrived in Rome on a Thursday night and went back to Prague on Sunday night so we got to sightsee for all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The hostel we stayed at had a really good location and it was inexpensive. You could walk to the Coloseum in five minutes.
The first day we went to Vatican City. There was no line at all. We walked right into the museum. We were warned that there was going to be a long line, so that as nice. The VaticanMuseum is something around three miles long and we were there for over three hours. It was really nice. We split an audio guide between the four of us and it worked great. I didn’t realize many exhibits that there would be. Some of the best things to see in the museum were Raphael’s rooms and the Sistine chapel. After the museum we went to St. Peter’s Basilica. The church was huge. It’s the largest church in the world. It was amazing to see.
The second day we walked to the Coloseum. It was incredible. It was definitely my favorite thing we saw. I can’t imagine what it would have looked like in its prime. The weather was also very nice. The sun came out when we were walking around inside the Coloseum. I had not seen the sun for two weeks in Prague... So it was extremely nice to have a sunny day. After that we walked through the Roman Forum ruins. It wasn’t very exciting to see. We should have walked through them faster than we did. We kind of wandered around and took our time. That’s when both Trevor and Lucas’s cameras ran out of battery. Mine ran out of battery two hours after theirs did. I had already taken 500 pictures at that time. Trevor was able to find someone else at our hostel with the same camera charger so he had his camera on the third day. We went to the Pantheon after that and that’s where I took my last pictures. The Pantheon was bigger than I thought it was going to be. The ceiling was interesting. After that, we went to Trevi fountain, which was really cool as well.
The third day we walked around in northern Rome. Nothing terribly exciting, just visited a few town squares and some fountains. It was a nice and relaxing day. The weather was great so we just took our time at each square or fountain. We had already seen everything that we wanted to see. I had five gelatos while in Rome and they were all amazing. The food that we had was decent, but we were also eating at more inexpensive restaurants. One night we bought food at the grocery store and cooked in the hostel. That was the best meal that we had all weekend. All in all, I had a really nice time in Rome. I’m glad that I was able to make it there while I am in Europe. There is so much to see but I think that I saw everything that I wanted to.
Prague has an amazing zoo. It was recently remodeled so all of the exhibits were really nice. The zoo was damaged by a flood in 2002 so much of it has been rebuilt since then. It is rated the one of the best zoos in the world by Forbes magazine. Admission was just $6 too, so it was very inexpensive. We were there for more than four hours and still did not see all of the exhibits. The best exhibit was for the lemurs. You could walk around with the lemurs in an enclosed area. That exhibit was really cool. Someone had their dog by the tiger exhibit and the tiger came close to the glass to check out the dog. I got some nice pictures of the tiger with him so close. The zoo also had a pack of wolves, which I have never seen before. That was cool to see because they would run around their enclosure together just like a real wolf pack. Most of the animals were sleeping so it was nice to see some acting somewhat natural.
Pope Benedict XVI was in Czech Republic for a weekend in September. He was in Prague for a few hours on a Saturday and a Monday. I was able to see him on the Monday when he was saying farewell to Prague. I was about forty yards away from him. He was waving from a balcony above the Vatican Embassy for maybe ten seconds. It was exciting to see him. I have a few pictures so you can see how close he was. You can look at the higher quality pictures in google albums, the link is at the bottom of the post.
Last weekend I went to Warsaw, Poland. I went with my roommate from New York, a guy from Denmark, and one from Belgium. We had a good time there. We took a train there Friday morning and came back on Sunday. The hotel that we stayed at was a five star Hilton. The guy from Denmark works for Hilton so he gets really low prices for rooms. We ended up paying around $35 a night per person which is a little more than you would pay at a hostel, but the five star hotel is ten times nicer than a hostel. There was not a whole lot to see in the town. It is much more eastern Europe than Prague is. It was interesting to see. You can tell it was damaged much worse by the second world war than Prague. In the center of the town there is a huge palace that dominates the landscape. There are also a lot of new buildings being built that look very modern.
Students can volunteer to teach their language to the other international students. I am teaching intermediate/advanced English with a guy from Georgia that goes to school in New York. The class is going to meet every week for 45 minutes. We had our first class last week and we have about 30 students. There are ten students from Czech Republic and the rest are from all over. It should be pretty interesting to see how it goes. I hope that I am able to teach them something. They all want to practice working on conversational English and grammar.
Every week a few countries present their culture/traditions to the rest of the international students. This past week USA presented with Germany and Turkey. Our presentation went well. We showed a slide show that had popular American icons such as Obama, Michael Phelps, Lance Armstrong, etc. Then we played a drinking game, flip cup, with some people from the audience (which we won). After that, some of the Americans danced to a few songs: the cotton eyed joe, cha cha slide, and soulja boy. I did not dance, but the presentation was fun. Pictures from the past few weeks.
So, I have been in Prague for a little over a week. Europe is a big change for me, but it has been very exciting. Prague is a beautiful town. It almost feels like I am watching a movie. The architecture and castles in town are amazing. The public transportation works very well. It is easy to get around without a car. I am so used to driving everywhere so it is taking me some time to familiar with it. There are metros, buses, and trams. I am starting to get accustomed to using them. Every little thing is different here. You have to pay for your grocery bags. You have to pay to use some bathrooms. The beer is really cheap (2 US dollars for 16 ounces of beer). Beer is cheaper than water. There are two bars in the basement of the dorm. Almost every street is made of cobblestone. There is a foosball table in almost every bar, which is awesome because the table they use here is exactly the same as the one I had at home growing up. There have been some very intense and exciting games. More to come throughout the year.
My roommate is from New York and the other people in our suite are from New York, Canada, and Costa Rica. The people I have met are from all over the place: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, France, Scotland, Finland, Netherlands, and Ireland. There is a group of students from UnionCollege in New York and a few students from El Paso, Texas. The accommodation is better than I thought it was going to be. The pictures of the dorm that were on the internet made the rooms look really small but they are actually pretty nice. Three rooms of two people each share a common room with a kitchen, bathroom, and shower. The kitchen has two stovetops, a sink, and a small refrigerator but it should work well. The international student club is very well organized. They have hosted a few integration parties that were fun and there are country presentations every Wednesday night. The club is also organizing several trips throughout the semester for the exchange students. I think there are around 400 exchange students at this university alone and there are a few other universities so there are a lot of students in Prague.
We took a tour of the Prague and saw a few of the bigger tourist attractions in the area. PragueCastle, CharlesBridge, and Old Town Square. It was a good first tour but I am looking forward to exploring more on my own. This weekend the international student club hosted a trip to the northern region of Czech Republic called North Bohemia. We saw two castles, natural rock towers, Jested TV tower, a beer brewery, and visited an aqua park. Vladstejn is the oldest castle in CzechRepublic and Bezdez is the largest castle. The view from the top of the tower at Bezdez was amazing. The brewery tour was interesting, we got to see the traditional way to brew beer. The beermaster said that beer is a way of getting the vitamins and minerals of the earth to the public in liquid form. I have never seen anything like the rock towers. They look fun if you are into rock climbing.
Classes started on Monday and they should be easygoing during the semester. I do not have any classes on Friday so that will be nice for taking trips. The final exam period is going to be much busier than the semester. The final exam counts as your entire grade.
I miss everyone back home. It feels as if I have been gone for months rather than weeks. When I come home maybe the beer will finally be in stores!
This weekend Pope Benedict is going to be in Prague so I am planning on going to see him. I am planning on updating this every few weeks. I will be putting pictures up more often than posts. My albums can be seen here: Prague Tour, North Bohemia
