For Future Explorers

PACKING AND TRAVELING: Specifically, what kind of linens did you need to bring? What are you glad you packed from home? What do you wish you had left at home? Do you have any travel tips to pass on (planning advice, safety considerations, guidebooks, train vs bus, etc)? What places would you advise future students to see and why?

-As far as linens go, bedding is provided for you whether you’re at the dorms or the various hostels you’ll encounter, so you’re set there. You can buy a towel abroad or if you choose to bring one, make sure it’s one you don’t mind leaving behind. Honestly, “things you don’t mind leaving behind” applies to about everything you pack: t-shirts, socks, clothes in general, even shoes, pack what you are willing to let go of as you’ll be bringing home a lot of new stuff! My biggest mistake was my method of packing. I completely overlooked packing for all four seasons, so when the warm weather came around I was skimped on what I had brought with me and ended up buying a lot of new clothes. By the end of the trip I had a lot of cold-weather wear that took up a lot of room trying to pack up to return to the states. I highly suggest packing lightly; no need to shop and prepare for things you could wear overseas because you’ll have more than enough time to shop for that stuff! You’ll be exposed to so much while traveling with a group that planning your own trips will be easier than you’ve ever imagined. Take advantage of the STUDENT AGENCY; they’re pretty darn helpful.  Get out of your dorm room and see as much as you can during the long weekends you’ll be granted with! I highly suggest taking a trip to Brno, Czech Republic and Budapest, Hungary! These were two of my favorite weekends. Regarding whom you travel with, don’t be afraid to break down your “crew” into a smaller few because you’ll find it much easier to travel in small groups. However, I took various trips with there just being three total and then other times having nine, you’re bound to have a good time either way –you’re in Europe!

SOCIAL LIFE: How did you meet students from your host country? How did you like to spend your free time and why? Is there anything you regret not doing more of in your free time? What opportunities for social, recreational and cultural events that the host university or program offered did you like best and why? What piece of advice would you give to future students regarding their non-academic life while overseas?

-As sad as it sounds, I didn’t really meet too many people from my host country, they really liked to keep to themselves where I was. I also think that it was harder to meet people of the host country because the living situation was almost a barrier to doing so. The dorms we stayed in were for all of the international students, not necessarily the locals of the country. Regardless, it was an adventure enough warming up to the students from home; majority of us didn’t know any more than one another’s names prior to the trip. Some of the social opportunities we had involved going to Club Belmondo or 15 Minute; both very student oriented and usually a good time. Belmondo hosted a party for a different country every Wednesday, so we were always getting a taste of a new culture that way, haha! There were also random festivals held in the town square which involved live music, rows upon rows of souvenir shopping, and food and beer. My favorite and most memorable experiences definitely revolve around the friends I made during my time abroad. The trip wouldn’t have been near what I was able to experience if it wasn’t for the people that entered my life. Do things that you never would have dreamt of being able to do during your college years, especially because for a lot of you, you don’t know when you’ll get to come back. Don’t be afraid of feeling uncomfortable because more than likely you’re not the only one. Get to know your new surroundings, literally familiarize yourself with where you are and your route will become much easier as the time flies by.  Acquaint yourself with the strangers on your trip, and get out of your comfort zone and make the most of your time abroad!

SCHOOL WORK: How did your academic experience at Palacky differ from your US experiences concerning: relations with professors/classroom instruction, grading, study habits, and using the library. Also, what enabled/hindered your successful academic experience?

-Academically, the lectures were much more interesting in here because a lot of them contributed to the upcoming field trips. I would say that the schoolwork was a lot easier at Palacky in comparison to being home because it was all just paying attention to class lectures, and the real learning was in my own hands, and how I chose to apply it elsewhere. I definitely think that in this kind of learning environment of being abroad, a lot of learning happens outside of the classroom. The grading was fair with our university professor as she was clear in setting her standards for what she expected on our quizzes, participation, and final exam. My study habits probably weren’t the best while being over here simply because it almost didn’t seem like I was in school. It was too fun overseas to even compare to school at home. I didn’t ever use the library at Palacky; one, I didn’t know where it was located, and two, I never needed it. The field trips definitely aid to what is taught in class. Get the most out of those of what you can, and you’ll appreciate it so much more.

MONEY & COMMUNICATIONS: How much money in US currency would you recommend students have at their disposal for their whole time overseas? How much money did you have in foreign currency when you left for the program and was it enough? How did you manage your money (credit cards, traveler's checks, bank accounts, etc.)? How and where did you access your money? How much money did you spend on books, school supplies, food, entertainment, local transportation, travel, toiletries, airfare, and laundry? How did you communicate with the US? What would you recommend to future students (e.g.: calling card, Skype, set up email account, etc.).

-Money, money, money...the worst part of traveling. I think I set aside about $5,000 for this trip. I brought over $1,000 in cash to exchange into Czech korun, which lasted me the first month, and then I used my debit card to withdraw at ATM’s the rest of the trip. I also had a credit card just in case, but I never had to use it. As far as taking out money, you’ll want to take out larger than smaller amounts because of any international and foreign ATM charges. Spending money varies from person to person and where you choose to go, what you choose to buy and eat, etc. Overall additional travel and airfare in Europe probably cost me around $1,200, more or less; this included hostels, too. In Olomouc though, you’re provided with a transportation pass for the buses and trams. You are also given a laundry card that allows you to use the dorms laundry units at a small charge, but the machines are worthless. They are tiny washers, and unless you combine loads with a friend you only have one of the tiny washers, and one load takes about two and a half hours to complete, not including drying. Use the laundry mat by the tram stop, and meet George –laundry is done quickly there, a little pricier but no regrets there. Also, bring a line of some sort, for hanging clothes to finish their drying. Globus is their version of Wal-Mart, and it has just about whatever you’ll need grocery wise, buying a straightener/blow-dryer, slippers, toiletries, etc. and it’s just a fifteen minute walk away from the dorms. All in all, spending money is your own call; I highly recommend making a budget for yourself, it’ll help in the long run. Communication is pretty simple, turn your data plan off and use Wi-Fi; Skype home, use messaging apps, etc.

OTHER COMMENTS/TIPS:

-Take your own bags to the grocery stores because they’re not provided.  

-Pack wisely, pack lightly, PACK WISELY. Pack for all four seasons.

-Bring a water resistant coat, preferably one that has an inner layer, so it can also be used during chilly days.

-Plan for America Night at Belmondo ahead of time! Bring some red, white, and blue wear overseas! If you’re thinking Jell-O shots, bring the packets from home; there’s no Jell-O in Olomouc!

-If you’re planning on being anti-social, don’t come. Harsh, but why take the spot of an applicant if you don’t intend on branching out of your comfort zone and making any friends or memories on an adventure like this.

"TOP MUST-DO-ACTIVITIES" TO EXPERIENCE DURING YOUR TIME IN EUROPE:

1. Climb to the top of the tower on Petrin Hill to get a beautiful view of Prague, Czech Republic.

2. Spend time outside while you’re in Olomouc! There’s a park nearby always swarming with people, and it has a little beer bar. There are also some really pretty paths you end up finding on your own if you’re a runner/walker.

3. Go to Budapest, Hungary! Stay at the party hostel called, Carpe Noctem Vitae, and you’ll be in for a treat. They always have something planned to do to keep their guests busy; Budapest in general keeps their guests busy and entertained. Go on a free walking tour to get a taste of both sides Budapest. Go to the baths and relax!

4. When you’re in Venice, Italy be sure to eat at Alfredo’s Pasta to-go, you won’t regret it! Also, grab some friends, a bottle of wine, and go on a gondola ride.

5. If you go to Rome, Italy go to Frigidarium for gelato that will be beyond compare to anywhere else’s! Visit Vatican City and be sure to see the Sistine Chapel! See the Colosseum and Trevi Fountain, too! Rome is all about their tourist attractions and that’s about it.

6. Go to Brno, Czech Republic, it’s the second largest city in the Czech Republic. It’s only about an hour away and makes for a fun weekend. Hang around the big black thing in the center, you won’t miss it! See Spilberk Castle and the Capuchin Crypt.

7. Take a train to a small town for Easter Monday to see Czech festivities and get a whole other taste of their culture.

8. Eat at Café Opera at least once, and get their gelato, a lot.

9. Try Daybreak juice at Daybreak, right by the dorms. The owners are so sweet, but you’ll find cheaper prices when you get into town. Remember to hit up Café 87 and St. Angelo’s for cappuccinos and warm breakfasts.

Best in the Pest

Budapest: To begin with, mad props to Jacob for choosing a great hostel for us! We stayed at a party hostel called, Carpe Noctem Vitae which in Latin means "seize the night". Appropriately, we did just that immediately following our arrival. We were welcomed by the hostel-keepers who were an incredibly chill group of people, not much older than us, inviting us to attend an evening on the well-known boat bar, A38. They checked the eight of us in and within fifteen minutes of getting to our rooms and freshening up, we were running out the door. We literally ran the whole way to the bar to catch up to the others going to the river for A38. Here's a couple of pictures from that night!

On the boat with the Budapest buds

Budapest's Parliament

The next morning we were up at a decent time and went on a free walking tour through Budapest. Budapest is split by the river in which one side is Buda and the other is Pest. We were staying on the Pest side, but we got to see plenty of the wealthier Buda side on our tour. Following the tour, we split for the majority of the rest of the day. Some of us shopped and stayed in, and others went out for round two, on a pub crawl to the ruin bars! I was one who hung back, but I got to see them during the day and that was good enough for me. 

View of Pest from the Buda side

View of Buda from the Pest side

A ruin pub is created from keeping the original buildings doomed by destruction and adding old and rejected furniture; they are not only for partying but also for gathering the community.

Our last day in Budapest was my favorite. We slept in and meandered our way to a popular tea house known for its "Narnia like wardrobe entrances" into different tea rooms and its 50 or so different flavors of tea! It was such a relaxing way to start our day! After we each finished our pot of tea we hit up the Grand Market. This was an enormous, overwhelming market of fresh produce, bakeries, spices, and traditional clothes and trinkets --a lot of souvenir shopping happened here. The spa bath was our next stop, and a top priority of the weekend! Before going to Budapest, the thermal baths was about the only thing I knew about the place. The bath we went to is one of the largest in Europe and is the first of the Pest side of Budapest. The bath had hot-spring water with a variety of minerals in it that left our skin feeling good! We strolled through the city park on our way back to the hostel and called it a fairly early night, only because we had to be at our bus at 6AM this morning. Here's some pictures of the tea house and the bath!

One more night in Budapest would have been nice, but I'm grateful for the wonderful time we had there and the beautiful weather we were blessed with. Thanks for reading, love and miss you all!

-Molly

Poles and Peanut Butter

Extracurricular: A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks, but I’ll try to make this section short and sweet. One of our free afternoons in Olomouc a few of us took a bus just outside of town and visited Holy Hill. Holy Hill is a pilgrimage site with a legend of an Olomouc citizen who was asked in a dream, by Virgin Mary to build a chapel. It was beautiful out and a great time spent relaxing in the sun, looking down on the town of Olomouc. Later in the week our class took a day trip to somewhere about an hour away and toured a palace that we had to wear funny slippers over our shoes for. Following the palace tour we visited the second oldest wine cellar in the Moravian region of the Czech Republic. A lot of us agree that while being down there, touring and sampling wine, we knocked off a few years of our life from the musty air and excessive amount of mold. Although I have yet to know the name of the town we were in, it was a memorable field trip to say the least! As I mentioned in previous posts, a club here in Olomouc (that we’ve familiarized ourselves with) allows a different group of students to host a party for their country, every Wednesday. The club provides decorations and the necessities for making a popular snack of the country as well as a choice of beverage. This last Wednesday, it was America Night! Let’s just say that the club thanked us for the crowd we brought in with our Jack Daniel’s Whiskey and PB&J sandwiches. America Night is definitely in my top five of most fun nights out! The next day was May Day, and the town square was holding festivities all day; a live band, food vendors and an assortment of stands with handcrafted items similar to what we had seen at the Easter Festival. Our other and most recent trip not surrounding the Holocaust was to Ostrava, Czech Republic. It’s located near the Polish border and is the third largest city in the Czech Republic; it’s known as the “steel heart of the republic”. We toured the industrial steel plant, their pride and joy, and then proceeded to Krakow, Poland.

Cutie Pie Jenna

Kaitlyn and I representing Gamma Phi Beta with a crescent moon, at Ostrava's Industrial Plant

A little set up of what work in the salt mines would have been like

Terezin: Before our trip to Auschwitz in Poland, we visited Terezin (Thereseinstadt), Czech Republic the weekend before, giving us more build up to the Holocaust. Terezin is located near Prague and once served as a ghetto and concentration camp established by the SS during WWII. Tens of thousands Jews were sent here, but it was not an extermination camp; thousands died in Terezein but mainly due to malnutrition and disease. Most significant about Terezin is its role in Nazi propaganda, creating a film that portrayed decent living conditions in the camp. The Red Cross sent representatives to Terezin to assure that the living conditions there were okay. However, the Nazis were aware of the upcoming visit months in advance and created false advertisement to get the Red Cross’s approval. Several Jews were deported to death camps to reduce the overpopulation of the camp, and rooms were added to the camp such as a barbershop that would never be used. Following the tour of the camp, we visited a few museums; there was old artwork from the children in the ghetto as well as set ups of what the barracks would have looked like.

"Work Makes [You] Free"

Sinks in the Barbershop that were never actually used by the Jews

Poland Shtuff: The first day in Poland we toured a massive salt mine in Krakow. We only saw 1% of the mine and that alone took three hours! It was pretty funny on our tour as we stopped to lick a lot of the walls. After the salt mine we checked into our hostel and wandered around the neighborhood in search of some supper. The next morning we visited a Jewish Museum; there was a sequence of events with readings of life in the ghetto during the war. Afterwards we walked to Krakow’s town square to do a little shopping before heading back to the hostel to play cards. Sunday, we got up early and visited a castle, its treasury, and the dungeon. After the tour we were eager to get to the little festival we noticed from afar, with lots of traditional Polish foods and handmade trinkets. Speaking of food, Poland is second on my list of best cuisine for this semester’s cuisine. Over the weekend I had perogies, which are Polish dumplings stuffed with meat, cheese, sauerkraut, or fruit, Polish sausage and potatoes, two hamburgers –first ones since being away from the States, and they weren’t nearly as good as the State’s, and Mexican food –also incomparable to the State’s. Nevertheless it was a spectacular weekend of good eats!

Polish flags were everywhere; definitely the most patriotic country we have visited in Europe!

Enjoying our margaritas and Mexican food

Schindler’s Factory: We visited the museum in Oskar Schindler’s Factory which has been devoted to the experiences of the WWII Nazi occupation. Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist, spy, and a member of the Nazi party. He is most known for employing Jews to work in his enamel factory and by doing so, saving 1,200 lives during the Holocaust. The museum exhibits the German invasion in 1939 and everything in between to the Soviet capture of the city. The museum was nothing like what I expected; I really thought we would just be seeing the factory and work aspect of the Jews, but there was so much more to see. If you haven’t seen the 1993 film, Schindler’s List, I highly recommend it.

Auschwitz: This was our final and most anticipated destination for the weekend in Poland. Words don’t really do this site much justice, but it was an experience I will always remember. Hearing and learning about the Holocaust in class is one thing but getting the opportunity to visit the historical site has left me with a much greater impact. I can’t even fathom my being there in Auschwitz, walking over the same steps thousands of Jews. The tour seemed to go by so quickly that I wasn’t able to fully take in everything presented before me. It was a weird feeling overall. I actually got legitimately sick to my stomach upon arrival to Auschwitz, and I honestly don’t know if it was from something I had eaten or a mental buildup of preparation of going to the camp, maybe a little of both. Auschwitz consisted of three parts: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, and Auschwitz III-Monowitz. Auschwitz I was the original camp which first held Polish political prisoners; this was where the administration and gestapo were and where the torturing was done. Here I saw piles of pounds of hair on display which really choked me up. Following this was a portion of thousands of pairs of shoes of men, women, and children. Touring Auschwitz I was definitely the hardest part of the tour. Auschwitz II-Birkenau, this is where the Jews went through the selection process after being transported by the countless trains entering the camp and either worked or were gassed immediately. We stood where the Jews stood and walked the paths they took to their filthy barracks and to the gas chambers. Being in Auschwitz II-Birkenau didn’t hit home as much as I imagined it would. It just didn’t feel real; being on the same grounds that marked history not even 100 years ago. We saw the destroyed crematorium and beyond them monuments sculpted, recognizing the lives lost. The most surreal part of being there was the shockingly peaceful environment it is today. It was so strangely beautiful; the camp is now surrounded by trees that were planted by the prisoners of the camp. I felt like these trees represented so much more than what they’re acknowledged for because the ashes of those who suffered in the gas chambers were scattered all along where those trees stand strong and tall today. While we were still walking through the camp, I overheard a tour guide having a one on one conversation, maybe even an interview, sharing that he loved his job and felt like it was rewarding. Aside from educating others and gifting them with knowledge, I can’t imagine ever loving being at Auschwitz every day. I’m glad that I was able to fulfill the opportunity of seeing Auschwitz, but I don’t think I will ever go back.

Only a handful of the thousands of cans of Zyklon B used in the gas chambers; one can could kill 700 Jews.

T-Minus: 25 DAYS UNTIL I AM HOME! Bittersweet, but I’m ready. May is already a quarter over! Tomorrow I leave for Budapest, Hungary and return on Sunday. The next weekend I have free. May 20^th through the 23^rd I’ll be in the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic, and immediately after that I’ll be headed to Barcelona, Spain, with Jenna and Taylor for the majority of the last week! Crazy to think of how fast this semester has gone by! Thanks for reading, love and miss you all!

-Molly