One week down!

Time already flies! Last week Saturday I finalized packing my car -including Nespresso, enough shoes and food for "on the way"- and readied Corsa for our first real trip together! And yes, the lack of travel companions made me talk to my car. The way to Prague was not very eventful, I got stuck in traffic for 3 hours, but other than that it went well! I practiced my German skills at the petrol stations, had loads of coffee (and even more tea) and I used Corsa as a karaoke bar. However.. Due to this traffic, I arrived to the Czech Republic a little later than I intended to; it started to get dark. And at some point my tour guide thought it was funny to give me an off-road tour on the borders of Prague. Really cool! If I wasn't dying to get to my destination... On top of that, the roads I needed to take were blocked and there were some deer that seemed to think that the road was their playground. In the end, I managed to reach my destination. Upon arriving, the guy that was appointed to be my buddy let me in. He and another girl also helped me to unload the car; the face of the guy at the desk was priceless. He didn't say a word but it was kind of obvious that he was taken by surprise with the amount of stuff I managed to smuggle through Germany. After mocking his raised eyebrows, we decided it was time for some beers! First thing to do upon arrival in the land of the beers, right? I more or less installed myself in the crampy dorms, I'm not a proper princes, I have stayed in more than one dorm in Wageningen and I have seen many more, but this room is... interesting let's say. However, I cannot say that I wasn't warned, on more than one occasion and by more than one person. At least it's a roof for time being! And at this point I really have nothing to bitch about, because from the 8 day's I've been in Prague, I spent 5 in a hotel.

En fin! First day here was Sunday and I was welcomed with AMAZING weather. No 17 degrees and rain, 28 degrees and sun! I was invited for a lunch at Rad'á's parents place, so I went there. It was amazing! And I got to practice some Czech, my Czech skills mainly consist of random bullshits I have picked up, so that makes for a quite interesting conversation I can tell you. Funniest thing is that when you start to speak a bit Czech (I repeat, a BIT, barely any vocabulary and probably wrong pronunciation) the reactions of people are 360 degrees different. Some start to speak fast as hell, so that after half a sentence I'm completely lost and start to stare at them until the letter-flow stops and they offer to continue in English (keep trying!). Others keep answering in English (not too bad, at least I understand), but there was one server got annoyed as hell and said "just speak English" in an angry tone... but most seem to like that I'm trying to speak a bit and I now know how to ask my way around and order food; it's a start! Which brings me to the next subject; Czech classes! On Monday last week, the Czech intensive language course started, it was really nice! The teacher found out quite fast that I already picked up some Czech and in the first break she asked me what exactly I know. After telling her (not in detail) what I know, she was pretty amazed, and in particular with my pronunciation (special thanks to my Czech teachers!!) But this did resulted in her asking me for an answer in most cases. At some point she was asking if anyone knew typical Czech foods and drinks and I was like yeah sure... Hruškovice, slivovice, merunkovice, zelena (all of them liquors)... And I know how to make zemlovka. So she was laughing at that. Anyways, I got dismissed after a few classes because a) mom and dad arrived and b) the material consisted of things I already knew. I was also told by friends that Czech uni will be different in many perspectives, so I was prepared for a lot. But I was not prepared for one thing.. At some point, one of the girls said she saw a large spider walking around, on which was reacted that "they don't bite". Turned out that this "spider" was actually a young rat. One girl was brave and tried catching it, however, it bit her and started squeaking and running through the class. This was the point that most of the class evacuated and one of the girls looked for higher ground by climbing on a chair. I wouldn't be me if I wouldn't try catching it! So I emptied the container of grapes and started to chase it. At this point we were all still convinced we were chasing a mouse. After chasing and managing to put the container over the animal it started to shriek like a banshee! But I did get an applause from the class for catching it. The container (see picture!) was see-through, which made it easy to observe it, then I concluded that it was not a mouse, but a rat. Though, a young and very thirsty one. The teacher was not amused by the unexpected participant and was very happy that I put it somewhere far outside. Because you never know how it breaks from a container...

The rest of the first week I spent with family, my grandparents, parents and brother came over to Prague, so we did some sightseeing and visited most typical touristic things. We made a boat-tour, had many beers, went to a wine-event (and got lost), saw Prague castle and the Charles bridge -as I said; we were typical tourists! But it was a great introduction of my longer stay in Prague.

This week was the introduction week! It is awesomely organised (by 2 organisations that refuse to work together, or rather; the school seems not to want to work with the ESN -> Erasmus Student Network). And as you would expect in Prague.. It involves alcohol. A lot. Tuesday there was a pubcrawl on the campus, an event to visit all clubs and pubs located on campus itself. So it seems that there were 6 bars, according to the amount of drinks consumed... It was very funny, it was supervised by Czech students of the ESN and they did some games with us to get to know each other a bit. No macháček (Czech drinking game with dices) unfortunately ! When I proposed it, they were looking at me in amazement and wondering where the hell I got that from... Anyhow! After some drinks I managed to amuse them with my random Czech, and I kind of hope that the pictures of this event will not be published... Wednesday -early morning- started with something called "TEP-factor", from the published event schedule by school, this seemed to be the most interesting one. And it was!! Many students were hangover as hell (not used to drinking Czech style) but I was surprisingly fresh. Tired, okay, but not hangover! And then we had to get in the bus.. A bus that went on small roads, taking sharp turns, breaking as hell for other traffic and went up and down on steep roads. Two words: MOTION SICKNESS. Uff, one of the most horrible rides in my life, and then I was sitting near to someone who was still breathing alcohol. Really NOT a good combo. En fin, when we got there after one hour (yeah, from my place you drive one hour and you're in Germany if you go east) it wore off quickly, luckily. For this thing we were divided in teams and with your team you go into rooms to figure puzzles out, it was really cool! There were intelligence puzzles, agility puzzles and oh well, you get the point. This gives an impression --> http://www.tepfaktor.cz/cs/galerie-hra/ . We had a super motivated team and we figured most puzzles out easily! It was really fun to do this. In the evening I stepped by Rad'á to have a tea and then I was so tired that I fell dead to the bed. Yesterday was actually much of nothing, we had some information and then I went to do some work at the cat café (kavarna kocici) it was so cool! It's a normal café for coffee and stuff, but they have cats walking around, perfect working place !! Now weekend is about to start again, and after that the courses will also start. Real life! I would also like to hear what you all have been up to, so leave me a message!