Today, we went on a tour of the Czech Parliament for my international reporting class, to see how Czech journalists cover politics. Normally this doesn't happen when the Parliament is in session, but my reporting teacher knew someone, and here we were. It was fascinating, to say the least, because we got to talk to journalists from several different outlets - one of the big TV stations, and CTK (basically the Czech AP or Reuters), so it was cool to see the different approaches they all had.
My favorite part of the whole thing was getting to sit in the gallery and actually watch the parliament in action. I didn't understand anything, because it was all in Czech (and very fast Czech, at that) but it was interesting to observe nonetheless. I managed to see the prime minister, although we didn't get to see his mistress, since she apparently wasn't around right when we were there. I really felt like I was watching C-Span, except it was in Czech, and I was actually there. It was pretty cool.
Showing posts with label classes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classes. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Where am I going, where have I been?
First off, major points if you get the title reference.
Secondly, my apologies for updating so infrequently. There really isn't much going on here. We've been in Prague for the last few weeks, with the exception of a detour to Dresden, Germany last Saturday. The fact that I can just head over to another country for a day hasn't gotten old. Other than that, midterms have mostly been keeping me in Prague. I only had one test, but I had several papers and articles due over the last week or so, and a presentation in my Varieties of Contemporary European Cultures class. I wrote a paper on my search for gluten-free food in Prague for my Travel Writing class - I figured I may as well write about something that really affected me, and I may as well capitalize off of this somehow.
We're headed to Italy on Friday for spring break. I'm really excited about it. Emily and I will be spending a few days in Rome, and then meeting up with some friends and heading to Naples. We'll also be checking out Capri and Pompeii and Vesuvius. Should be a great week. I have a bit of a cold though, so I'm hoping that goes away. I'd rather not have the flight to Italy be the most miserable two hours of my life if I can help it.
Trying to buy cold medicine today was interesting. I was attempting to get by with cough drops, since Halls are the same in the U.S. as they are here, but I had to give in this morning and go to the pharmacy. The pharmacist spoke very little English, as most people directly outside of the city do. I realized as soon as I got there that I should have looked up the generic names for what I wanted, because the only thing I could ask for was ibuprofen, and I already had a perfectly good bottle of that sitting on my desk in the dorm. I managed to explain (somehow) that I had a cold and needed something for it, and she gave me what I'm guessing is the Czech equivalent of Tylenol Cold or Dayquil. The only thing I know is that it has pseudoephedrin in it and won't make me drowsy. I can't tell if it's working otherwise though.
Today marks two months since I left New York. It's going really fast. The program's half over already. While there's plenty I can't wait to get back to New York, there's a lot I'm going to miss about being here. A lot of people are traveling after the semester ends, but I feel like I'm going to be ready to get back to New York by the beginning of May.
On the other hand, I hear the weather's miserable in New York, and it's been in the 50s here, so maybe I'm not ready to go home just yet.
Secondly, my apologies for updating so infrequently. There really isn't much going on here. We've been in Prague for the last few weeks, with the exception of a detour to Dresden, Germany last Saturday. The fact that I can just head over to another country for a day hasn't gotten old. Other than that, midterms have mostly been keeping me in Prague. I only had one test, but I had several papers and articles due over the last week or so, and a presentation in my Varieties of Contemporary European Cultures class. I wrote a paper on my search for gluten-free food in Prague for my Travel Writing class - I figured I may as well write about something that really affected me, and I may as well capitalize off of this somehow.
We're headed to Italy on Friday for spring break. I'm really excited about it. Emily and I will be spending a few days in Rome, and then meeting up with some friends and heading to Naples. We'll also be checking out Capri and Pompeii and Vesuvius. Should be a great week. I have a bit of a cold though, so I'm hoping that goes away. I'd rather not have the flight to Italy be the most miserable two hours of my life if I can help it.
Trying to buy cold medicine today was interesting. I was attempting to get by with cough drops, since Halls are the same in the U.S. as they are here, but I had to give in this morning and go to the pharmacy. The pharmacist spoke very little English, as most people directly outside of the city do. I realized as soon as I got there that I should have looked up the generic names for what I wanted, because the only thing I could ask for was ibuprofen, and I already had a perfectly good bottle of that sitting on my desk in the dorm. I managed to explain (somehow) that I had a cold and needed something for it, and she gave me what I'm guessing is the Czech equivalent of Tylenol Cold or Dayquil. The only thing I know is that it has pseudoephedrin in it and won't make me drowsy. I can't tell if it's working otherwise though.
Today marks two months since I left New York. It's going really fast. The program's half over already. While there's plenty I can't wait to get back to New York, there's a lot I'm going to miss about being here. A lot of people are traveling after the semester ends, but I feel like I'm going to be ready to get back to New York by the beginning of May.
On the other hand, I hear the weather's miserable in New York, and it's been in the 50s here, so maybe I'm not ready to go home just yet.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Welcome to the Czech Republic, how may I not help you?
So after my two classes today (International Reporting seems like it's going to be great, and I'm sort of excited for History of Nationalism, but not as much) I set out for a trek out of my little Old Town bubble to the post office where the package I received was being held. I managed to find the post office without a problem, although it was about a 25 minute walk. However, when I got there, I get sent to four different lines before they refuse to actually give me my package because I don't have my passport on me. Apparently the 4 other forms of photo ID I had on me didn't count. The lady behind the counter knew exactly one English word - "passport" - and I can successfuly use about four phrases in Czech (one of them being "ice cream") so I'm now extremely thankful to the person behind me in line who was nice enough to translate. I still left extremely frustrated with Czech bureaucracy, although not as much as I was after I applied for my visa. Oh well. It was an adventure.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Czech Class, Day 3
I don't have a good ear for languages, which consequently means I'm not particularly good at Czech. I know we've only been learning it for 3 days, and that it's a really hard language, but it's a bit frustrating at times, since my mouth just can't seem to make half of the sounds it needs to. There's a lot of diacritical marks over the letters, which completely change the pronunciation of the letter, and in certain cases, such as the difference between R and Ř (note the little mark on top), where it changes from a normal, English-sounding pronunciation of "R" to some sound I can't even quite describe. It's more of a "rjjjzzzzhhh." I'm not quite sure where they got that one from, because it doesn't even sound like what you think any kind of R would.
At least now I can remember certain words, even if they are the really easy ones. I was kind of proud of myself when I asked for a "voda" (water) last night when we went out to dinner, even if that's one that sounds reasonably like English, or barring that, some kind of romance language.
Now as soon as I stop saying "excuse me" to people in English when I'm on the metro, it'll all be okay.
At least now I can remember certain words, even if they are the really easy ones. I was kind of proud of myself when I asked for a "voda" (water) last night when we went out to dinner, even if that's one that sounds reasonably like English, or barring that, some kind of romance language.
Now as soon as I stop saying "excuse me" to people in English when I'm on the metro, it'll all be okay.
Monday, January 15, 2007
getting lost is the only way to find your way around
Note to self: Next time I'm on a tram, make sure that I get on going in the right direction, because I shouldn't cross the Vltava River, gorgeous as it may be, when I'm on my way home from class. That was an experience.
Orientation has been interesting so far. We went to Old Town Square yesterday, which is the big tourist center. Classes are in a building located just off the square, and that's really nice too. I seem to be learning my way around, but not knowing Czech is getting kind of interesting. Today we started intensive classes, but there's only going to be so much I'm able to pick up. At least now I can say please and thank you.
I felt particularly lost when Emily, Rachel, and I went food shopping yesterday at Tesco, a British import which seems to be analogous to Wal-Mart. I don't think I've ever been so excited to see American toothpaste and shampoo brands in my entire life, even if most of the labels on them were in Czech. Food shopping was a bit challenging, mostly because we didn't know enough Czech to tell what certain things were. Groceries are cheap here though, which is always nice.
On the same food note, I was super excited today to find Schar, this really good (and very European and not really available in the States) GF brand at this pharmacy near our dorm. It made me feel a little better about surviving in a country where everything seems to involve bread.
Today I finally got a hair dryer, which was a bit of an adventure in itself. I didn't want to get one at Tesco, where they were about 1000 crowns (roughly $50 American) so I went to this Radio Shack/Best Buy-ish electronics store next door. Nobody there spoke English very well, so it was a lot of pointing and sign language. Easy enough, until I paid and went to the back of the store with my receipt to actually pick up my hair dryer, where I proceeded to wait on a line for at least 15 minutes, while everyone else patiently waited for me (which I felt kind of bad about) with no one around to help the rapidly forming line of people waiting to get whatever they'd just purchased. It felt a little bit communistic, in a way.
I also got a phone, which I'm super excited about, because I feel a little more connected to the world. It was also cheaper than the U.S., which is a good thing, since I'm only using it for four months. It's with a company called Vodafone, which doesn't service the U.S., and all of the students on the program had cleaned the store closest to the Center out of the cheaper phones, so we went to Wenceslas Square (the center of the tourist area) to find another Vodafone outlet, and just took the metro home from there, after a detour to Citibank, because the other bank refused to cash my traveler's checks.
Tomorrow we have more intensive Czech, and I need to buy a metro pass, since I didn't get around to doing that today. Emily and I tried, but it didn't exactly work out, since the crazy lady running the booth tried to send us to a station that was on a different train line, and we didn't feel like heading all the way there when we'd been running around all day, and I don't think either of us were in any mood to find our way there after such a long day.
Orientation has been interesting so far. We went to Old Town Square yesterday, which is the big tourist center. Classes are in a building located just off the square, and that's really nice too. I seem to be learning my way around, but not knowing Czech is getting kind of interesting. Today we started intensive classes, but there's only going to be so much I'm able to pick up. At least now I can say please and thank you.
I felt particularly lost when Emily, Rachel, and I went food shopping yesterday at Tesco, a British import which seems to be analogous to Wal-Mart. I don't think I've ever been so excited to see American toothpaste and shampoo brands in my entire life, even if most of the labels on them were in Czech. Food shopping was a bit challenging, mostly because we didn't know enough Czech to tell what certain things were. Groceries are cheap here though, which is always nice.
On the same food note, I was super excited today to find Schar, this really good (and very European and not really available in the States) GF brand at this pharmacy near our dorm. It made me feel a little better about surviving in a country where everything seems to involve bread.
Today I finally got a hair dryer, which was a bit of an adventure in itself. I didn't want to get one at Tesco, where they were about 1000 crowns (roughly $50 American) so I went to this Radio Shack/Best Buy-ish electronics store next door. Nobody there spoke English very well, so it was a lot of pointing and sign language. Easy enough, until I paid and went to the back of the store with my receipt to actually pick up my hair dryer, where I proceeded to wait on a line for at least 15 minutes, while everyone else patiently waited for me (which I felt kind of bad about) with no one around to help the rapidly forming line of people waiting to get whatever they'd just purchased. It felt a little bit communistic, in a way.
I also got a phone, which I'm super excited about, because I feel a little more connected to the world. It was also cheaper than the U.S., which is a good thing, since I'm only using it for four months. It's with a company called Vodafone, which doesn't service the U.S., and all of the students on the program had cleaned the store closest to the Center out of the cheaper phones, so we went to Wenceslas Square (the center of the tourist area) to find another Vodafone outlet, and just took the metro home from there, after a detour to Citibank, because the other bank refused to cash my traveler's checks.
Tomorrow we have more intensive Czech, and I need to buy a metro pass, since I didn't get around to doing that today. Emily and I tried, but it didn't exactly work out, since the crazy lady running the booth tried to send us to a station that was on a different train line, and we didn't feel like heading all the way there when we'd been running around all day, and I don't think either of us were in any mood to find our way there after such a long day.
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