Gonna miss it here!

For my last blog I’m going to generalize this entire trip. Before I go into detail about what I learned, I think it is important for you to know why I decided to do this. One of the biggest reasons is because when I am old and surrounded with my family, I want to be able to tell them about all the places I’ve been. Everything that I did that was crazy or weird while abroad. I would much rather have stories and memories from those adventures than have a bank account that has commas. Another reason why I did this is because of my faith. Whenever I think of my God and how he created this World with his own hands, then I think he would want me to see it. What’s the point of having a huge beautiful world filled with beauty if nobody ever sees it. Finally, I did this trip to understand how it really is over in Europe. Back home I see pictures and people talking about it but I didn’t think that was good enough for me. These are just the big reasons. As I reflect on everything, I do not think I would change much. First I want start with the classes. Some of them were really entertaining and the lecturer was really knowledgeable. However, there were classes where I was fighting taking a nap really hard. This is really hard to change though because you never know who will be interested in what or how the professor lectures. Along with the lectures we also got a Czech language class. This class remember me so much of my Chinese class I took in high school. The professor tried to shove too many things at us at one time and assumed everyone knew the material because one person gave her the right answer. It also did not make any sense on how we learned it. Our first lesson she started it by asking us what we had already learned and wrote them down. Then we played a couple of games that didn’t make any sense to me and ended class by going through a wordlist that she wanted us to work on memorizing. The next day we had Czech and it was started by her saying what the word meant and we had to tell her the Czech word. I don’t know about you but I was beyond screwed. After this failed, we went through the alphabet once and how to say all of the letters, and that was the only time we did that. I’m going to stop now on the classes otherwise you will be reading for an hour. XD Another aspect of this program is the class field trips and honestly I loved each one of them. A lot of people got annoyed because of how many churches we went to or castles, and I was with them. However, once we got there and saw it I was so happy we had gone. There was maybe one of each that could’ve been skipped but that was an experience that I’m glad I got. Also best thing about school field trips is that I never had to plan anything! J Overall my experience here was one of the best times. I realized how much I talk to my family and that I miss them easily. I learned that Jon, my boyfriend, will help me and push me to do new things. That sometimes missed planes or buses happen and you have to keep going. Finally, that you need to leave home so you will appreciate what you have even more. T-minus 8 days till I go home!

My boyfriend and I!

Really miss these crazy people!

The group is no more!

Me at the best castle yet!

Looking at the schedule the first day of class I remember thinking that it was going to be a long time until the end of this program. However, today we finished the last task on that paper. So the group is no longer together so I want to speak of our last week. For those of you who do not know. The Czech is split into two big section, Bohemia and Moravia. Starting on Tuesday we traveled to a little town called Lithomysl. Here we went and saw this amazing church that just got put back together. What is really interesting about over in Europe is that they restore so many buildings, even if they have no use for it. This church was exactly that. You see they already had enough churches for the community that lives there but this building really had some amazing value to it. So starting in 2010 they started restoring it and adding a little bit of modernism to it as well. I will post pictures so you understand.  This is also the location where we got to sit on some modern art. Sadly I was not able to run up the bus because we got yelled at.

Inside the Church.

Look at the town from the Church.

The next day we were off again, this time to Kutna Hora. Here we saw probably the weirdest church on Earth. They had tons of mass graves for the people who could not afford to be buried by themselves, and after a while they would dig up the old graves, take out the bones and put new bodies in there. Well after a while they had so many bones in this church that an artist decided to use some of them and decorate the church with them. If that does not sound like a great idea then I don’t know what will. Also they had on display bones that had not died from natural causes. On the way to that town we stopped by this location where a town used to be. I say used to be because the town was burnt down with all the people that lived there. Even people who were living somewhere else but grew up in this town were hunted down and killed. This all happened because once the Nazi party was defeated, people wanted revenge, and instead of blaming that one person, they blamed the entire village. This was truly sad to see because you can see where the houses used to be and now it is just stones.

The place where the town used to be.

The theater!

The ceiling of the bone church.

The next day we were off again, this time to Cesky Krumlov. This was a beautiful town that was a lot bigger than the previous towns. Here we saw a castle’s theater. I have no words to describe how amazed I was at this. For a scene change it took 10 seconds and I mean completely changed. We also went to the Budwieser brewery and no I do not mean the American beer company. There are two of them; the one that is just called Budwieser and the one that is brewed and originally from Budwieser. See now you learned something if you didn’t know. Finally, today we saw probably my favorite castle yet! It was huge! I could roam the castle for a week and still get lost. So that’s all I really have to say. Besides this 13 days till I go home!

Martin and I. 

I really loved the doors at the castle.

SO BEAUTIFUL!

My professor and I!

Day by day.

Since we are almost over with the program I thought I would give you a little insight about what we normally do here. Our classes normally run from 3pm-6pm Monday through Thursday and Fridays from 10am-1pm so this leaves a lot of free time for us. When we first got here it was very chilly for the weather. So during this time we really did not explore Olomouc until April. Once it got nice out that’s when we would start getting onto trams that we do not normally take and see where they lead. Or take the bus to the store since we never really take the buses. What really threw us off is that one day, all of the trams were changed. What had happened is that there is major construction going on in a section of the town. So they added new trams to go around to those sections that were on the other side, and took out any of them that went through that section. Once we take the tram into the squares of the town then, we usually are off to find food. Usually we try to go to a place that we have no been to.. At first it was really easy, however, now most of them are not close or we do not know where to go. We try and stay semi close to the squares of the town. How Olomouc is spread out is that there is an upper square and a lower square. Sounds simple but you have to remember that lower square is on a hill so it seems like it should be upper. After a while we started getting favorite places to eat. Opera Café is the place we go if it is later than 9pm and we haven’t ate. There is a place that serves good Viamtese food, and of course there is bull restaurant, which is not the name of the restaurant but it a lot eaiser than trying to say the name.

One of the churches not far from my classes.

After we eat usually we are headed off to class. If it has been a week or so than usually it is laundry day for us. This was really difficult for us to work out but now we have a system down. So usually around 8am or so we will walk down to the lobby of the dorms and ask to borrow the keys to the washer. Make sure that we have our dorm card, which is a little purple piece of paper that you MUST have in order to borrow anything from then. This is where I got in trouble because when we arrived here I was not informed that the little piece of paper was needed so I threw it away and it took over half an hour to get the women at the front desk to understand that I did not have one and that I needed a new one. So after we have the keys then we must go back to our section of the building and drag our laundry to the basement to the laundry room for our building. Then it is the waiting game. You can only use one washer at a time and the washers here are half the size of the ones in the States. Each load takes about an hour to do. Then when we are done with that we grab all of our wet clothes, put them in our suitcase and take it about two blocks south to the Laundry Mat. Then pop it in the dryer which takes about 15 minutes to dry. If it is a large load then 30 minutes. Then drag it back to my room to put away. We do this instead of just going to the Laundry Mat because of the price. To rent the washer for 3 hours it is about $1.75ish, and the dryer is $2 for 15 minutes. But the other way is about $4 for just the washer and the $2 for the dryer. So after all of this I would rather do it the more time consuming and save my money. So our daily life here is not exciting like traveling to somewhere new but it gives me time to just calm down and chill before I go somewhere. 23 days till I go back home! :-)

View from the top of the Town Hall building.

Lick the Walls!

I hope while reading that title you started to worry a little but it is okay, our tour guide said it was okay! If you are confused then let me start from the beginning of the trip. Around 9am on Friday morning we all piled into the bus for another trip. After a four hour drive we were there back in Poland! However, this time it was not quite depressing as the last time. Before we even checked into our hostel we were on an adventure. First up was a salt mine. Not going to lie I was pretty excited about this because I have never been to anything like it and after seeing a lot of the same things it was an exciting change. We first had to walk down tons of stairs and I mean it! There are 6 steps going down and there were 54 of them. J

View of the stairs we had to climb down!

Skye, Cassie and I at 110 meters down!

After a while of going down these I was getting dizzy. Then she started to take us through the sections that were open to us. What was really interesting to me is that they have their own air way down there and some are sectioned off by doors. So every so often we would open a door and all squeeze into this hallway and we had to close the first door in order to open the second. I am also proud to say that while I was down here I did lick the wall multiple times. So I can cross that off my bucket list! The salt that was down there surprisingly had different tastes to it. There was one section that was exactly like table salt just in chuck form. But there was this one that had a bitter taste to it that salt does not have.

Cassie licking the wall!

Me licking the wall!

Skye and George licking the wall!

View of the Chapel in the Salt Mine.

Another thing that surprised me about the salt mine is that they had statues there. However, none of them were done by artists! All of them were done by miners. Another room they had down there was a chapel. You would never guess that this would be a thing since we were so far down in the ground. They put so much detail into this chapel that the ground had lines in it to mimic tile. What really made this tour really enjoyable was all the salt jokes that our tour guide made. Like in one part of the tour
they take us to this underground lake where they play pretty music and it is really popular for people to propose here. However, a couple months ago once the music started he got down on one knee and asked her the question, which she said no to… guess you could say he was a little salty about it. Yep we had all the salt jokes. So after this tour we checked into our hostel and nothing really exciting happened that day, which was great! The next day we went to a castle which was an interesting tour. It had an armory in it so that was pretty cool to look at all of the items. However, I only learned one thing really here because our tour guide spoke quietly and very fast. So trying to understand what she was saying took a lot of effort. Finally, on Sunday we got to sleep in a little and visit Schindler’s Factory. Now I have not seen the movie but I kind of knew what happened here. For those of you who do not know. Schindler was a guy who helped saved around 1,000 Jews and he did this by buying a factory and employing the Jews. Then when they came to take Jews to concentration camps, those who were working there did not have to go because they had a work permit and were basically working for the Nazis. These are the stories I love to hear because after seeing what they went through I am so happy that some people did not spend time in the camps. By the way 25 more days till I go home!

When in Rome....

With studying abroad I have seen places that normally are just in books. Over the time of Spring Break I got to visit such places. So I am going to start where I left off last time. Sadly I am going to just talk about my last day in Venice. The last day the entire group was together we went to an art museum which took about an hour and a half to get to. Why I really wanted to talk about this is because Jan ended up getting us lost so instead of a 30 minute walk, we got the long one. Once we were done with that, we were free to go and had to be back in Olomouc by class time on the next Monday. So what we did was went back to our room and grabbed our stuff and check into our hostel. We wanted to stay in Venice for one more day but the hostel that the school had booked was full for that night so we booked one. What was special about this is that it was a camping hostel. They were having a special deal so we even got to upgrade to cabins. It was probably the coolest place I had stayed in up till that point. The campground was sectioned out between the tents, cabins, bathrooms and so on. Sadly they did not have a pool. During the day we were on a boat ride which was an amazing thing. We learned that they have to say ahoj when they are coming up to an intersection that way they know who was coming up on the intersection.

Me on one of the many bridges in Venice.

Loving all the water!

The next day we were off to Rome. This was also where we got the opportunity to camp in Italy. However, this location was so much more than the other. There was a pool that was close since it was too cold, a restaurant, and a bar all on the same property. What was great about this is that we really did not have to leave in order to get food or a couple drinks if we wanted to. Our first day there we got to see the Vatican which is a lot more than I ever expected. We ended up being the last tour to go through and got to see the chapel! It was so insane to be in the chapel because we weren’t allowed to take photos so it wasn’t a tourist spot. The entire time we were in there I just wanted to lay down on the floor and stare at the ceiling and that is truly what I would do for hours on end just to appreciate the room. What I thought was really interesting is how much they have there. The Vatican has buildings upon buildings fill with statues and paintings that was found there. That was pretty much what we did that day. The next day we got to see the Colosseum and it was interesting. Usually when you go to a place that you know people were murdered there then it is like an creepy feeling, like the one I got in the concentration camps, yet for some reason I did not feel that way. I think a portion of this is because the time difference. For us in 2016 it is really hard to even imagine people fighting while others placed bets on who would survive. What really surprised me about Rome is how dirty it is. Everywhere that was not a tourist location had trash cans that were filled to the rim and even then had so much trash around them that you couldn’t walk around it for a good 2 feet. Overall, I would say that Spring Break was a huge success and sadly I am not going to talk about the rest of it just because it would not be as exciting.

Our first look into the Colosseum.

Showing some Alpha love!

This is my Italian boyfriend, he made me
a bracelet.

Honestly no idea what was in the building but it was too
beautiful not to take a photo of!

One the status in the Vatican,
Circus Maximus.

One of the most known spots in the Vatican.