3 Weeks in, More of Praha

So it has been almost 3 weeks since i last wrote here so i figured i would give everyone an update on my adventures in praha. Since my lat post my Austrian flat mates have arrived, I have explored praha much more, I have gone on a retreat to the boonies with my classmates, and i have started school.

So the day after my last blog post, Ruann's and I other two flat mates arrived. These two guys (Lukas and Martin) are from Austria. We lucked out with this roommates and we all get along very well and hang out mostly together. What i was amazed was how sweet of a deal it is for them to go on exchange. By them going on exchange they 1) get to live in a flat together that is only 100 euros a month (compared to back home for them which is 300 euro a month) 2) Courses are pass or fail like ours 3) Everything is much cheaper here than back home for them 4) By going abroad (4 hour bus ride) they are entitled to free tuition and a 900 dollar subsidy for there travels. (this means subsidy 900 euros - 400 euro's for housing = 500 euros for beers and such)

Heres a picture of my roommates and there buddys (who were have been hanging out with alot)

Next i went on this retreat called Ice Breaking Weekend at "Czech Kanada". This was a retreat organized by the buddy system where 100 exchange students went to a cottage 2 hours from Prague. The retreat was amazing as everything was super well organized and you got to meet your other exchange students on a more personal level. What i got for my $85 dollar retreat was 4 meals a day, 2 nights accommodation (which was better than what we have at home :)) and a bunch of activities, one day we did ice breaking games, and the second day we had sort of an amazing race type event (which my team won, our prize for a buddy t-shirt and i giant bowl of Long Island Iced Tea which we had to finish in one go.)

Here is a picture of my winning team (our team name was lucky number 7)

Here is a picture of me on the second after the bar where i found a cat on my way home, and stole him and brought him to my room

Classes so far have been harder than i expected but still very relaxed. One class i am taking mark is based 100% on a final test, and to pass this course all i need to get is 40% of the top person in the class's mark and did i mention the test is only T/F! My other classes seem very interesting one teacher even printing out a picture of everyone in the class and tried to guess everyones names. All and all classes are good, and i only have class Mon, Tues, Wed. For those who are interested in the classes i am taking they are

1. Corporate Finance
2. Financial Dervivates
3. International Financial Markets
4. Comparative Economics
5. Drugs and Economics
6. Globalization of Sports
7. History of Economics (though i am not in this class officially yet)

Finally i would like to post some observations i have had about prague.

• Most things are not refrigerated. Ie the majority of milk is not refrigerated.
• Eggs are not refrigerated and are almost all egg white.
• It is incredibly hard to find natural water, everyone here much prefers sparkling water so that is what you find in the fending machine and grocery store.
• Food here is hit or miss, almost all brands are czech and fully in czech so it is hard to find a good pasta sauce for example.
• I got a whole green Pepper for 1.9 Korunas (ie 10 cents)
• You can chill as long as you want before you go to the dance club or bar, many nights we haven't made it to the bar till1am (as most places close around 5 or 6am.)
• I am starting to miss Vancouver, some people, the food, the olympics
• I went to Ikea and it was awesome!
• School food is crazy subsidized
• All soup is dry soup (just add water)
• Me and Ruann's first laundry day took 8 hours (that is not included grabbing the clothes after they finished drying in the drying room)
• Goulash and Dumplings are Delcious

I'm In PRAGUE!

So If anyone doesn't know I am currently in Prague Czech Republic for an Business Exchange, and I will be here in Praha 3 till late May.

But before i get down to the Blogging stuff you guys must know

1) This is my very first blog.... ever

2) I have terrible spelling + Grammer which you will find out very soon

Before we start here is Prague

So Me and Ruann (For those of you that don't know this is my friend from Simon Fraser University who i am doing this exchange with) left Vancouver for Prague at 8:45 pm on Feb 1. The flight was alright though it was very cramped especially since i was in the middle and in the aisle seat was a 300 pound Indian man who didn't speak any English. But once we started enjoying the perks of free Booze we didn't care too much. Heres a picture of me and Ruann and just some of our drinks.

The Drinks put us to sleep but before we knew it we were in Heathrow airport in London. If any of you don't know this airport is HUGE! There is a subway that takes you between the the main Terminals it is that big. Heathrow was interested but we couldn't find any Brit's to say "Hello Governor." After 5 hours there we were on our way to our next Destination Prague. This flight was very interested, leaving England at night we could see the Lights of the city for a Long time, what i found particularly interesting is every couple of blocks you see HUGE lit up stadiums, mostly for Soccer, but some for Rugby and Tennis as well. This flight (which was only 2 hours) was must more comfortable than the first one. The flight was half full and there was lots of leg room!

We arrived in Prague at around 10:15 pm Prague time on February 2nd. After we got our Luggage we walked to the exit where our buddies Zuzana and Tereza were waiting for us. What our school VSE (The University of Economics) has is a really good program where there is a Czech Buddy who takes you around for the Semester, this is something a Czech at VSE does to improve there application package to apply for exchange. To get back to our residence from the Airport it was about an hour (but of course this is at night when it takes a litte longer) to get there we took a Bus then took the underground metro, and then took a tram (kinda like the ones in San Fran if you dont know what it is) We got to our Dorms at around midnight. These are the dorms for VSE students. there is 7 buildings i believe for maybe 2000 students (but not sure of the number.) When we got to the dorms we had to fill out a little paperwork, this would of been much harder if we didn't have our buddy as the 24 dorm man spoke 0 english! We then got our room here is our room as of Day 3 (a little messy but i thought you would still enjoy)

After Unpacking me and Ruann went to bed around 4am. We woke up at about 12pm and were greeted by our buddys at 1230pm as they had to help us register us in with the dorm supervisor (who also only spoke czech!). After we had registered we decided to go to the School to get our University and dorms Internet ID. We found the place, got our internet and then got a tour of the school. During this time exams from the Winter semester were still going on so there was Czech students around. The tour was good and we ended it off by getting Lunch at one of the numerous restaurants on Campus. I had Snitzzle (which i had never had) it was good. Later that day we went to the city the get Ethernet cables for internet in our dorms and then went to the grocery store Kaufland. The Grocery store was very interesting but i dont feel like writing about it too much. For those interested back home we got a 10 pack of half liter beers for around $6 Canadian. (though i hear you can get a half liter beer for as cheap as 25 cents each). Here is a picture of our buddy's at the Grocery store.

At around 930 pm we decided to go our for the night with our Buddy's. We started the night by going to see the old town. Here is a picture of the Old town square (sorry for the large image)

This square was super nice especially since it was all lit up. Me and Ruann were deffitenely in Full tourist mode here. (hopefully we didn't embarrass our buddys too much haha). After walking through old town (and seeing all the pubs and clubs my friend Shawn had told me about) We decided to pick Chapeau Rouge to start. Chapeau Rouge was very interesting. It was three floors and each floor seemed to be an entirely different place. Different prices, different music, different people. Chapeau Rouge was also awesome as it was super packed and it was a Wednesday! After Chapeau we decided to find some SMAZ! Smaz is a friend cheese sandwich which something like a fried mozzarella patty in a bun with Mayo. We wanted to show our buddys Smaz as we got it when we got off the metro the first night and our buddys thought we were crazy, and now that we all had a few beers in us they were more open to the idea to trying smaz so we took full advantage of this. They found it delicious though they laughed that i had eaten it just as many times in my 24 hours in Prague as my buddy Zuzana had eaten it in her whole life.

Another interesting thing i found with the Smaz is that the price of it changed dramatically as we walked from old town to new town in the period of a 2 mins walk the price at the Smaz shop (a 24 hour fast food restaurant chain) changed its price of Smaz from 35 korunas to 30 Korunas to 25 Korunas. Price elasticity in full effect!

Here is the Smaz shop, the Smaz is item number 5

Later the night we went to a Second pub near the Smaz which was also good, this was not a dancing bar and we just sat there and talked to 3am and then got the tram back to our dorms.

One thing i haven't talked about is how awesome the transit system is in Prague. In Prague you can catch the transit any time of the day. The one we will take most often i believe is the Tram 9 (devítka) 9. This tram comes every 2 - 4 mins during the day, every 10 mins at night, and every 30 mins from 1am to 6am. It takes us about 20 mins to get to the downtown area by tram, and 12 -15 minutes to get to our university by our number 9 Tram.

On Day 2 Tereza picked us up at our dorms at around 130pm. From here we got our Transit pass (which was very cheap) and went to the bank to directly deposit money to a Czech bank account to pay for our dorms. (Thanks Tereza again for helping transate for us!) After this Tereza took us on a AMAZING boat tour around the Vltava river (the river charles bridge crosses.) I am sure this tour probably costs upwards of $40 dollars for tourists but as Tereza knew someone that works there we got the tour and Pislner, and Cookies for free! This tour was amazing and we learnt alot of interesting things about Prague (which just increased my love of the city.) After the tour we walked over Charles Bridge to Tereza's friends house as she had a present for Tereza. This walk was really interesting but as my Camera died i have no pictures of the rest of the day after the boat cruise. (below is a picture from the cruise)

After we picked up the Present we went to get a traditional czech meal. Some of the items that were ordered included: Goulash, Bread Dumplings, Potato Dumplings, Duck, Cabbage, Potato Soup, and Garlic Soup. All was really good though i didn't like the cabbage too much. After Dinner we had some drinks and then went to see Sherlock Holmes. From what i saw the movie was awesome (most movies are in english with czech subtitles) though me and Ruann did pass out for parts of it because of Jet lag which has owned both of us quite a bit thus far. After that we took the last tram home, said goodbye to Tereza (as she was going back to work the next morning - she works as a skiing instructor) and went back to the dorms.

Thus far I have had an Amazing time in Czech Republic, and have gotten alot accomplished thanks to Tereza and Zuzana. I will end my things with a few things i have found interesting thus far about Prague

1) Buses, Metro, Trams, they are all awesome and i love that they come often and go 24 hours

2) most food is also 24 hours which is nice

3) Chikse, they are alot of Chinese restaurants in Prague.... like alot.

4) There are alot of Gambling places in Prague (12 in the 15min bus ride from dorms to school)

5) The fending machine in our dorm is awesome. It sells sandwiches (like 7 eleven) Red bull, cookies and pop and all in one machine!

6) Beer is everywhere and everyone loves it. (i think there is a bar in every dorm building at our Jarov Dorms)

7) The city is beautiful and has alot to do and see, at one time Prague was the 3rd largest city in Europe only behind Istanbul (Constananople at the time), and Rome.

Hope everyone is having a good time in Canada, leave comments on the blog! (PS sorry for the Grammer and Spelling again!)