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Last Czech Meal- Fried Cheese |
My journey is finally over so that means my blog posts are too. This semester has been one of the most amazing 4 months of my life, in the course of the 4 months I travelled to 30 cities, 13 countries, learned the basics of 8 different languages, and have made many new friends and memories! I fell in love with Prague and it is now a place that I cannot wait to return to. I wouldn't have changed anything about my experience and I am so happy I went to Prague. Prague has so many wonderful things about it such as: 1. the cheap costs of everything (one of the cheapest cities in Europe) 2. one of the most beautiful cities with some of the oldest in-tact buildings that in fact does look like Disney World or a fairy tale 3. convenient location- just a few hour bus/train ride to the many surrounding countries 4. variety of food- unlike many other countries there was Czech, French, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Greek, and more 5. SO MANY THINGS TO DO!
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Dancing House |
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Petrin Tower |
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Charles Bridge Tower View |
Although I never ended up having a chance to blog about it, Cody and I had made a Prague bucket list with sooo much stuff to do and we didn't think we would be able to accomplish it all. By the end of the semester we finally did it all! Some things on our bucket list included: going to the dancing house (swirly building with artwork and a rooftop view); climbing up the Charles Bridge Tower, the Petrin Tower (mini- Eiffel Tower), and the Old Town Square Tower, finding the view where someone took the picture on the top of my blog, exploring the Royal Gardens behind the castle, going to the National Library to see the book tunnel, going to Vysherad- a gothic cathedral and castle area a little farther out in the city, seeing the massive TV tower that can be seen anywhere in Prague (and has babies crawling on it), going to various clubs and bars recommended by locals, seeing a play or musical, go to a soccer game, go to a hockey game, spray paint John Lennon Wall, watch the sunrise on Charles Bridge, going to the zoo (rated one of the 10 best zoos in the world), seeing the gardens outside the city, and much much more. I loved having this bucket list because every single day we would explore something new or find a new adventure. Not only that but I was so fortunate to have other friends who wanted to explore too. We named ourselves the "Wednesday Adventure Crew" because we didn't have class on Wednesdays so we would explore Prague. It worked out well since we were away almost every weekend, but yet we were still able to keep exploring our own city. Through our adventures, I met some wonderful friends and became close with them.
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Sparta Soccer Game |
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Sparta Soccer Game |
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The Baby Tower |
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Spray painting the John Lennon Wall |
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Sunrise on Charles Bridge at 5 am |
I learned more this semester than I have ever learned in school. There is just so much more to learn from studying abroad from learning to navigate foreign cities in foreign languages, learning to communicate in ways other than words, doing unit conversions between all the money, learning so much history and about many different cultures and ways of life, learning how to remain calm if lost, working with other people and becoming a team, learning about different religions, learning from the people you meet along the way and their experiences- you learn much more by keeping your mouth shut, and experiencing the world. You can learn as much as you want from a history book, but seeing things in person like Auschwitz can give you more of a history lesson than any book.
Now that I have been home for a couple of weeks, I have been able to re-adjust to America. One of the weirdest things for me was people speaking English! I was so used to not being able to understand anything anyone said and could tune people out or people trying to talk to me in another language and not being able to understand them. Also its been weird to stay in one place for more than a few days! It has been nice to relax and I have been trying to catch up on sleep. It's definitely been an adjustment coming home!
I am so grateful to have had this opportunity and wouldn't have changed a thing. So thank you to my parents for sending me, to Cody for being my amazing and wonderful adventure buddy and friend, and all you for reading my blog and keeping up with me. As the Czechs say Na Shleadanou - Goodbye!