Prostějov

Ostrava

 Hello folks!

Last Sunday after Prague I went to Prostějov in Czech. It is a smaller town around 3 hours from Prague. My Italian friend is living there and I spent 5 days at her place. I liked Prostějov a lot. It was a small town and everything was in walking distance (and bus costed 9 CZK if we were lazy).

My friend works at a local school and I went to work with her a couple of times. I visited English, Czech and Italian lessons there. I thought the children were really nice and at least in the Italian class they were also really good at languages. All the teachers I met there spoke English and it was nice to talk with them. 

Ostrava

My friend is working there through EVS - European Voluntary Service. This is like Erasmus but with workplaces. The people at her school explained it to me a bit more and if I have a chance in the future I would like to try it. You can also choose a destination from a country with a language that you don't speak and you'll get language courses. The roommate of my friend didn't speak any Czech and he was still working in the same school as my friend. I would like to do the same: choose a country where I can learn a new language. If you are interested about this you should look it up, the name of the program is a link to the site.

Within the 5 days I was in Prostějov I recovered form flue and after that I visited Ostrava. Ostrava is a city really close to Slovakia. I have a friend in Ostrava and it was really nice to see him too :) but I wasn't in Ostrava just to see him: I was there to buy rats for my friend. We tried to buy them from Prostějov too but every petstore in town was out of rats so I volunteered to go to a bigger city to get them. The two rats I bought (Alexandra and Anastasia) were the first pets my friend ever had so she was pretty happy that I was there to show her how to take care of them.

A local train in Czech

I have to say that Czech local trains are just.. horrible. Also smaller railwaystations there are awful for foreigners. All the announcements were only in Czech and they didn't have any platforms at the station! It was really awfull to try and find a correct platfrom when there were only railway tracks without any numbers or signs. Also there were many trains leaving at the same time and no one spoke English. I went to each train and asked someone if they go to my destination. I can't recommend this to anyone if they don't speak Czech but it was still manageable :) Now I have to brag that I bought the tickets in Czech from the station.


Traveling by train in Czech was pretty cheap. They count the price from the amount of kilometers so the prices are fixed for everyone.

 For my last day in Prostějov the school were my friend worked asked me to go with them on a classtrip to see Adršpašské and Teplické rocks and caves (don't worry I don't know how to pronounce them either). The school payed for this. Thank you! Also this day what the last day of school and the students of the shcool celebrated by dressing up, making nose and drawing stuff on faces of innocent bystanders. The costumes were pretty amazing. The students were also throwing water, vinegar and ugly parfumes on people and my friend got her share of vinegar. I survived with getting only a heart drawn on my cheek.

The caves were really amazing! Of course the tunnels made in them were artificial but all the naturally formed things were awsome. The guide spoke only in Czech but I had one of the teachers translating for me. If you ever have a chance go and take a look.

Then three days ago I took a train from Prostějov to Dresden to visit another friend. I really like it here! The day after tomorrow I'm leaving for Paris and on Thursday I'll go to Barcelona for 5 days :) I'm looking forward to that especially because my cousin is coming with me! After Barcelona I continue my studies again in Paris.

See you later! Bizous!

Alexandra and Anastasia :)

Prague

Hello cupcakes!

Oh my the pause between my posts has been horribly long again! I apologise! To my defense I've been really busy and I've been sick too.

Well anyway last weekend I was in Prague! It was my first time in Czech Republic and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Everything was so cheap and the quality was still good! Czech food was amazing.

The days in Prague I spent in an hostel and the rest of the time in Czech I was in my friend's house. I originally went to Czech to see her and I was with her for a week :) it was really nice to be with her for the last time I saw her was in August.

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

I flew to Prague with EasyJet on Friday and we left Prague on Sunday. On Friday night we saw many of the main sights and our idea was to visit them on Saturday. However I managed to get a bad case of a flue and on Saturday I was sleeping in a coma at the hostel. So in the end we saw all the attractions from outside and we could visit only a couple of them. On Sunday we visited the Petřin-tower and the castle of Prague.

Everything in Prague is in a walking-distance and I really liked this about the city. There were restaurantd everywhere and we ate each night in a different place. I don't normally like beer but in Czech especially the dark ones were amazing.

The currency in Czech is "Czech koruna" and ~25CZK = 1 €. Everything was so cheap!! I recommend visiting Czech at some point. My prejudice was that the country would be a miserable undeveloped dumb but actually it was really modern and lovely. I could see myseld living there.

People didn't speak too much English and this was a problem at some points. Czech people were trying to get money from me and my friend because of this. Most of the people were really nice but some shopkeepers were really greedy. I talked with a Czech friend of mine and he told me that Czech is a really safe country but corruption and taking money from foreigners are big problems.

I think that Czech is pretty hard to learn. The language has some special sounds that don't exist in other languages and the grammar is really different from English. During this one week in Czech I managed to pick up how to say "good day", "hello", "thank you", "please" and "bye" but they are really hard. I also find the writing really interesting. What I like in Czech are the long vowels that exist in Finnish too. It's almost a shame that were I live in Finland it's not possible to take Czech lessons.

On Sunday last week we left Prague behind and headed to Prostějov but that's worth an own post :)

Enjoy the pictures!

The Castle of Prague

Pink painkillers!

Gulasch

Main railwaystation

Easter

Hello lovers :)

Easter holidays are over and tomorrow it's time to go back to my courses. Unlike in Finland we had only Monday as a bank holiday and not Friday too (I didn't like that!). But in the end I'm not complaining because I'm skipping lessons on Friday to go to the Czech Republic! :P

Last Friday the woman taking care of the international things in our Uni just came to my English class and proposed to me that I'd spent the Easter with them. She just thought that 3 days alone wasn't good for me and decided to ask :) It was awfully nice of her and I spent one night with her family. On Sunday they had a big family meeting with 14 people and I was there speaking French with all the guests. On Sunday evening the husband of the family made me taste seafood :D Picture included! It was the first time ever for me. I quite liked it.

And this is not all - my English teacher at the Uni heard about this and invited me over to her house for one night! I was there from Saturday to Sunday. I was glad that I had my English exam on Friday because it was a bit awkward at first. She also had a Finnish neighbor and I was able to speak some Finnish :)

All and all everything is absolutely gorgeous here! The flowers are blooming and the trees are pushing leaves. Now it has been a bit colder: today it was only +13C. I hope that it gets better before we go to Barcelona with my cousin!

Only 4 days left before I go to Prague! :P I ordered some trousers from England and I really hope they come before my trip.. I didn't even think about Easter when I placed the order :/

Be safe and take care! :P

French Sunday dinner

Spring

 Hello folks!

This is an awful week. Tomorrow I have 9 hours of laboratory + 2 hours of English homework. I also would like to do 1 hour of English conversational course but I think it's just not possible. On Thursday I have 9 hours of laboratory again plus my last German course. On Friday I have an English exam.. I'm actually pretty sad that my language courses are ending. My last French course is next week.

My language courses are ending but my other courses aren't! My last exams is scheduled to be 22nd of June so I still have a lot to do. I have a lot of laboratory work now.

In two weeks we have a vacation that lasts 2 weeks. I'm going to see my Italian Friend Valentina in Prague, my Finnish friend Iida in Dresden and after that I'm going to go to Barcelona with my cousin :P I definitely can't complain. The last time I saw my cousin was last November when he visited me here with my mom (I wrote about it in text: "My family in Paris"). The last time I saw Iida was when she was here a couple of weeks ago. And I haven't seen Valentina since August 2011 (I wrote about it in text: "Italy"). I'm really excited about all this! I've never been to eastern Germany, Czech nor Spain! :)

Last weekend I was working both Saturday and Sunday. I had a especially "nice" first of April since the daughter of the family (4 years) locked me out from their house.. She just locked the garden doors before my very eyes! Her parents weren't too happy about her little "prank".

Last weekend I also drove a car for the first time here! Now that I think about it I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to do it.. I have a Finnish driver's licence. I hope yes and if not I'm sorry!

When I started driving I was in a total panic.. I come from a rather small city from Finland with only ~100 000 inhabitants so I'm not used to a lot of traffic. I drove during the night so it wasn't too crowded here either. I also didn't drive in the center of Paris but at the outskirts :) I would never have the guts to drive in the actual city!

 The spring have come to Paris! For the last couple of weeks we have had +20C. I think this is really funny because all my friends are telling me how much snow they have in Finland and all. Personally I find this weather annoying especially because it's too hot for me to run. But maybe I should tan a bit now that it's possible.

All the trees and flowers started blooming and I've taken a lot of pictures about that :) I shared a bit of them with you if you go down. Now I think I have to start translating laboratory stuff for tomorrow.. G'Night!

A poster for English class