The first week in Pragadise

The first week in Prague brought about countless amount of events worth posting on the blog. 99% of them were either positive or very positive and were mainly linked with the people I met here. Nevertheless, after the first two days in a hotel I was forced to move to Charles University dormitories in Hostivar. Theoretically, I was still only 10km away from the city centre, Anno Domini 2013. In practice I felt that I just found a solid prove against Albert Einstein’s theory that time travel is impossible. It’s possible. Just come to Prague and take the tram 26, direction Hostivar.

The architect of this finesse, rectangular, unidentified object must have been a big fan of the style described by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Communism can be touched, felt, smelled and experienced here on every step. The building also was very well thought through as it has eight floors with the lift only serving the first seven. Obviously, I got a room on the top floor.  The interior designer, on the other hand, clearly admired Alfred Hitchcock as entering the main lobby of the dorm is like an earthquake and the tension only rises from then on. Upon my arrival, I was greeted by a receptionist in her mid 60s who did not speak any English (why would she? It’s not like this is a dorm ONLY for exchange students). On the way to my room I passed under a once-upon-a-time white, leaking roof and finally got into the elevator, which looked like it remembered the events of Prague Spring of 1968. My penthouse is probably not more than 10m² large with the windows so efficient, that you can hear the trams leaving from a stop 500m away. The perfect spot for a public transport freak. Fortunately, I am not the only one who does not quite appreciate living in a place that could at most serve as a museum of communism and together with two other friends we are planning to move out ASAP. The flat-hunt begun earlier this week.

Except for Hostivar, Prague is simply amazing. In my very modest opinion it’s one of the most beautiful and underrated European cities. Beats Paris by a mile!  Even more impressive when you realize that when the monumental residencies in the centre were built, Prague was not a capital of a continental superpower but a third city of Austria-Hungary.

All in all, the first week made me realize that it is true what they say about Erasmus. You cannot dislike it. Well, unless you are over-sensitive about the state of your dorms but fuck it, I won’t let Hostivar affect my judgement!

Jan

Packing, .... For Dummies!

I will admit that I absolutely HATE PACKING : I always leave it to the last minute, I am always afraid that I will forget something, so I always end up bringing too much stuff. When going to University abroad, for a whole year: packing is a real challenge and can be an emotional process. Before jamming all you can in your suitcase and crying because half the stuff you want to take doesn't fit, think strategically. Here are my few tips for packing: 

1-Make a list of a) what you NEED to take b) what you WANT to take and c) what you SHOULD take but won't.

2-Ask yourself these essential questions: 

• What's the weather going to be like over there? 
• How long are you going for?
•  By which means of transport are you a) going and b) think you'll come back with? 
• How often do you'll be coming back home? 
• What will be provided at the place you'll be living at? 
• What are the clothes that suits you best? 
• Where's my passport? 
• What can you easily buy over there? 
• Are you a compulsive buyer, and thus going to buy yourself a new wardrobe over there? 
• Think of the personal items that you'll like to have with you, when and if you're going to be home sick. 

Based on the answers to these questions you'll get a rough idea of how much and what to bring. 

 3- Make categories like "Clothes", "Shoes", "Important documents", "Electronics", "Kitchen", "Cool/Weird items" (YES I'M BRINGING MY BIG ORANGE BUCKET TO PRAGUE!) etc... so it is easier to check to that you've got everything. 

4-Go through all your stuff and sort it between what you want to bring and what you want to leave at home (you'll generally leave all the clothes that you never wear). 

5-Put your stuff on display in your room (as shown on the picture above) grouped into your categories so at a glance you can see what's missing and what you should remove. 

6- Fold everything so each item takes as little space as possible = you can bring more stuff

7-Find a suitcase/box large enough - put your your staff in as if it was a 3-D version of Tetris- push it all in- weigh it - DONE! 

Helena  

On The Way to Bohemian Rhaspody

Studying abroad is an experience that lets you explore other cultures very deeply. This includes travelling back to University after a Summer spent at home: never have I felt more like a member of a Gypsy caravan than when going to the city that serves as home to my stronghold of education. You can imagine I was quite an attraction to all the locals who I had to shamefully pass by on my way to Prague. Here is how it went.

  The trip commenced last Saturday when I took off from Luxembourg to find myself in Mannheim not more than 2 hours later. The plan was to visit my friend from Dublin who is taking her year abroad in the Land uber alles and then take a direct train to Prague from Germany. Upon my arrival, I was warned that my friend’s Russian neighbour considers himself Putin’s voter number one. Some of you are aware of the passion with which I dislike the Russian leader. Clearly, I couldn’t miss out on such an occasion to present my doubted vocal skills while singing a few songs referring to our loved and peaceful friends from the East. And Mannheim itself? If not the number of kebab shops it wouldn’t differ much from any other Polish city of similar size. This is either an insult to Mannheim or a compliment to Polish cities of circa 300.000 inhabitants.

  Two hours before catching the City Night Line train to Prague I begun to plan out my trip tactically. “The train leaves at 11:59pm…. So two beers should be enough to ensure that I fall asleep without a larger difficulty”- I thought and proceeded with my plan. I went in to my couchette cabin to see that there are four beds (needless to say they were too short to accommodate my almost two metres long body). A person who we should refer to as Helmut Gunter for the needs of this post already occupied one of them. Gunter was a middle-aged, middle-class average German man with a distinctive moustache and a red t-shirt hiding his large beer muscle. He also made a squeak of dissatisfaction similar to this made by a Trabant on a sharp turn whenever I tried to fit my bag under my bed. You can imagine what happened when 50 minutes later two Korean girls went into the cabin thinking it was their own, then changed their mind only to come back again a couple of minutes later. Gunter got off in Dresden.

  This way I found myself in the capital of the Czech Republic. My first observation? I’ve heard a couple of jokes about the Czechs being a rather weak nation (i.e. what do you call a 100.000 peasants waving white flags? The Czech Army). Well, such is the case for the Czech currency: it’s also weak. My wallet hasn’t seen as many bills ever since my 18^th birthday. This is also good as for the first time in my life I will be able to spend a 100 on a night out without experiencing a moral hangover on the morning after. Yes!

Jan

8 days to go ... What's on my mind?

    
    8 days to go before moving to Prague… I know the fact, but I am not really realizing it for the moment. It is only when I will be over there, unpacking, or in the first lecture that it is going to hit me. At present going on Erasmus seems to be only one of my many vague plans in the back of my head that is never going to see the light of the day. It is: it just hasn’t happen yet, I just haven’t made it real yet. This exchange that I been planning for months is about to become real in just a matter of days.

    What I do realize now is that this going to be a big step for me: I have already lived 2 years outside the family nest, abroad, in a student hall and then with friends; but this is going to be the first time ever that I am going to be living alone. This adds quite a bit of stress to this move. There are obviously some advantages to living alone: no need to state them, I’ll let you come up with them. However, I am a bit nervous about it: imagining all those worst-case scenarios, all that can possibly go wrong being a girl living alone in a studio in a foreign country. I will admit that I am scared of fire alarms: the sound of them gets me panicky, so I can just imagine myself freaking out in the middle of the night, crawling into a corner, rocking back and forth just because an alarm when off somewhere in the neighbourhood and having nobody to tell me that I’m just overreacting. I have a few friends that were living alone and they seem to have managed just fine, so I should be ok. I am a bit nervous now, but I know it’s going to fine once I’ve moved in and then I won’t worry any more.  

     Growing up, whenever I was about to start a new school year, move to a new place or when I started university, I always made resolutions. I guess that everyone does that when they undergo an important change in their life, right? I always made wonderful plans about how hardworking I was going to be, how disciplined I was going to be, how healthy, how friendly, how sportive, how …. Those resolutions never really last, do they? While anticipating my new life in the Czech Republic I was making all these ambitious and great plans for myself, and then I realized that there is no point making all these promises to myself if I will not keep any of them. So I came to the following conclusion. There are a lot of things that I want to do during my year abroad and I really want to make the most of it. However, there will be so little time: I am only going to be there for a few months and I will be busy with college so I will not be able to do everything. Therefore, I came up with this golden rule and my unique resolution for the year: “everyday on my Erasmus I’ll make the most of the day”. So no matter how lazy I feel or hangover, I’ll push myself to do something so I will come back with the feeling that I took advantage of my year abroad as much as I possibly could and enjoyed this year.

    Will I learn any Czech? That’s something I’ve been wondering about. I am not planning on taking lessons, but I would still like to pick up the basics for practical reasons and because I think it is always cool to learn to a new language. I have lived in Belgium a grand total of 13 years and I find it disgraceful that I only speak one of the 3 national languages. In all that time I haven’t picked up any Flemish or German, I can understand a little bit but can’t speak them. In a way as I am an expat there, living in Brussels where most people speak French and I was in schools were Flemish was non-compulsory, I’m sort-of excused. Once I was talking to Belgian, a native Flemish-speaker, who told me that what he finds frustrating about French-speaking Belgians is not so much that on average they don’t speak Flemish well but more the fact that on average they do not really seem to make the effort to speak Flemish. That made me realize that no matter how poorly you speak a language, people will always appreciate if you make the effort to try to speak their language. Coming back to Czech: knowing another slave language, Polish, I think I should be able to pick up a bit of Czech without too much problems. I just think that learning a bit of Czech can add a whole new dimension to my experience in Prague, as I would be able to get to know Czech people as well as foreigners. Plus it might be appreciated by locals that I’m not constantly imposing English. I’m curious to see how much Czech I will actually pick up after a year. We’ll see in June. 

These were my thoughts that I wanted to share,

Bye for now!

Helena

    

     

To Summarize the Past Year: Getting Ready for Erasmus!

Hey Guys !

As you probably know, Jan (tall Polish guy) and I are going on a year-long Erasmus exchange to Prague, to study, to get to know the city and the nearby area, to discover another culture, make new friends, and most importantly: HAVE FUN! As we both know that this is going to be an interesting and memorable experience, we decided to create this blog so our friends can easily Czech what we are up to, throughout our year abroad. We hope that you will enjoy reading this and that we will keep you updated as often as possible!

This first article is quite long but necessary to understand my whole preparation to going on Erasmus and to sum up my attitude before my grand departure. So to summarize the last few months and how come I’m going to Prague:

Step 1: Finding an Erasmus Destination.

Since I started at Trinity I was keen on going on Erasmus and I got quite excited when I saw online that my course offered the possibility to go to Poland or to Spain (because I was hoping to improve my weak polish, or my fake Spanish). Last October I started to investigate the different possibilities by asking around Trinity and emailing a couple of universities. Very quickly I was disappointed to discover that it was not going to be possible to send me to Poland or to Spain for both my subjects, and that in general it would be tricky to organize an exchange where classes would be in English and that would satisfy the requirements of both the Geography and Political Science departments. I knew then that I would not get one of my initial choices in terms of destination and I thought that I was not going to go on Erasmus at all...

Until one sunny November day, where after a night out Jan was laying in his bed surfing the internet from his Mac ©, like he usually does, and I was just hanging around the house in my pyjamas. Suddenly, Jan came out of his room with a proud look on his face and announced “I have found the perfect Erasmus exchange!”- I was very surprised: Firstly: I was surprised that Jan would come out of his room before 2 pm after a night out and, secondly: I was surprised that he was looking up universities on a hangover, but thumbs up for that. “Hein?” I replied. He continued “Charles University in Prague has very similar geography modules to those in Trinity, all of them in English and more than 40 politics modules in English”. My first reaction was: “Prague??? …”. At first I was not really thrilled by the idea because I don’t speak any Czech, I didn’t think that our Erasmus Coordinator would be willing to open this exchange and it wasn’t a destination that even occurred to me. But very quickly Jan managed to convince me to give it a try and dragged me into this. It was his idea: if I’m not 100% satisfied I’ll blame Jan. At the end of the day it didn’t really matter where I was going as long as I was able to study both my subjects somewhere in Europe. So after a bit of research we found a destination: Prague, Czech Republic.

Step 2: Playing the bureaucratic game and tough negotiations.

Setting up an Erasmus exchange is no mission impossible but can become frustrating as it’s a bureaucratic process. Our flatmate Kate managed to set up her exchange to Copenhagen within a few weeks and she was repeatedly telling us that if we show enough motivation that we will be able to set up our new Erasmus link. The different coordinators to whom we were suggesting Jan’s idea were glad to see students coming up with new Erasmus links and seemed happy enough to send us to Prague. For several months we had to chase around Trinity our Erasmus coordinator, a certain Dr. M.H., to check how the agreement was coming alone and strongly encouraged him to do his job. There were all the different requirements of the different departments making the opening of this exchange quite tricky. At certain moments I had a bad feeling that this exchange wasn’t going to work out, plus, I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to go to Prague; partly because I started to realize that I will miss living in Ireland : the place and the people there.

The daughter of my parents’ friends contacted me telling me that she heard that I was applying to Prague; she went there on Erasmus in 2007 and was strongly encouraging me to go. She told me how much is liked her stay, that she loved the retro aspect of this beautiful city, that I didn’t need to worry about not speaking Czech because everyone there understands English; and so on. Her enthusiasm about Prague was partly what re-motivated me to continue on with my Erasmus application. There was quite a bit of paper work to do for both universities. And then came the time to pick the modules I wanted to do at Charles University. It was a tough decision because there was a large choice of modules to pick from; on top of that we had to make sure to have the right number of credits for each subject: a real puzzle. When it was pretty much confirmed that we were going on Erasmus… Exams were coming alone and we had an extra pressure to study even harder as we were only going to be sent to Prague if we had at least a 2.1 for our year’s overall mark. To be honest, none of us wanted to screw up the exams after running after Dr. M.H. like we did during several months.

Step 3: Mental preparation.

After several weeks of stress because the exam preparation, several weeks of stress due to the exams and several weeks of stress because we were impatiently waiting for the results: everything turned out fine and it was confirmed that both Jan and I were going to Prague. On one hand I thought: “wow I’m going to C.U.N.T.!!!” … --->To Charles University Next Term” being really proud of myself that I got the Erasmus and about to live a whole new experience abroad. And, on the other hand I thought: “what the hell I’m going?” meaning: realizing how crazy it is that I’m going to live for a year in a country that I barely know – It was then, in my parents’ house in Brussels, that I realized that there is no turning back: I am going on Erasmus to Prague for a whole academic year, and have very mixed emotions about it.

On one hand: I am afraid and sad. I realized that I will not go back to Ireland for a long time, maybe for a year and a half, meaning that there are people that I will not see for a while, realizing how much I like Dublin and will miss it. Charles University having its different faculties spread around Prague, I will not have the advantages that Trinity has of being a campus university and having everything at one location: (OMG: having to go to different libraries around town to find the books I need instead of having the whole TCD library on campus #Heartbroken); also that I will have to adapt to an entirely new academic system that I’m not used to, which might be tricky at first. Furthermore the fact that it is the first time that I am moving to a country where I don’t speak the language at all, that I don’t really know the culture of – (even if I’m slave it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll understand the Czech culture and ways of life), that I have no connection to, where I don’t know anyone (besides Jan, but it doesn’t really count); made me realize that this might be the first time ever in my life that I might experience home sickness. This is true a paradox because I have no home country. This feeling of jumping into the unknown is what thrills me but also what scares me.

But on the other hand: I am very excited and really looking forward to this new experience: I’m having itchy feet. A number of my friends from Dublin are also going on Erasmus so I’m looking forward to hearing about their experience (Hint: Agata, write on your blog) and seeing how in a year’s time they’ve changed. I'm obviously looking forward to meeting new people there: checking out the people out on the Prague Erasmus page. Throughout my life I’ve lived in England, Belgium, Poland and Ireland, thus at this stage I’m used to changing country. When I first went to university in Ireland, I didn’t really know the country that well and I didn’t know a whole lot of people: but I’ve managed to very quickly fit in and feel at ease in Ireland. Even if, no matter how hard I’ve tried to claim that I’m Irish- no Irishmen would ever believe that I am Irish (maybe that I might be a wild geese)- it doesn’t really matter because I do feel comfortable on that Island, and realize what a wonderful experience I had there so far.

This makes me realize that I shouldn’t have too many problems trying to settle in Prague because I’m used to adapting to a new environment: it’s a challenge that I gladly accept. Moreover, it is more exciting to go somewhere that you know nothing about, that you have no preconceptions or prejudice, so you can truly get to know the place from scratch. Also, I am looking forward to travelling to nearby cities (Munich, Budapest, Vienna, Krakow, Bratislava etc...) having the possibility to go see friends that I have in Krakow, having people visiting me over there (one has already booked dates). Even if I’m a bit nervous about this now, deep down I know that I am going to enjoy it and I want to make the most of my stay there and take advantage of the fact that I’m young and have this chance to travel and life a crazy experience.

The picture above is a picture of my two older brothers, me and my father in Prague, I’m not sure what year it was but judging how young we look it was most probably more than 10 years ago: the first and last time I was ever in Prague and I don’t remember much, … expect for a big colourful clock, ... and a fountain? When I knew that I was going to Czech Republic, I realized how little I know. This summer I read a few short student guides to Prague plus had a look at a guide’s book that my friend Chloé gave to me, where there was a brief history of the Czech Republic to update and refresh my knowledge of the country: to know who Kafka is, King Charles after who the Charles University was named after, what year Czechoslovakia split; that the film director of “One Flew Over the Cuckoos’ Nest” is half Czech etc…

But also to discover what is worth visiting in Prague and I started to make this surrealist list of all the museums, and bars, and restaurants, and clubs, and markets, and shopping centres, and castles, and theaters, and film festivals, and concerts, and beer factory, etc..., I want to see in Prague. Realistically : if I wanted to do half of what I’ve planned to do in the Czech Republic: I will not be going to college. So reading about the city and country really sparked a great curiosity and opened my eyes to how culturally rich Prague is and how many things they are to do there.

Throughout the summer, I told people that I was moving East and gathered a whole range of reactions and advice from different people of different ages: All said that it is a beautiful city; many said that it is a fun city with a great nightlife; a number of them said that it is a city with a great History to it and culturally rich. I got very different reactions ranging from people saying “Praha is a wonderful city for all music lovers, throughout the year and all over the city there’s classical music concerts everywhere” to people saying “Great city for guys: alcohol and cigarettes are cheap and the girls are easy” This gave me the picture of a city that suits everyone’s taste, making my curiosity greater.

Step 4: The physical preparation

It is J-15 before my grand departure and I’m starting to wonder what will I take with me. To take or not to take my Bucket, that is the question. How many dresses, what jewelry, should I take some books, etc… I know that I should take loads of warm clothes as in the winter I need to survive pretty freezing temperatures: The point being is that I haven’t even started packing and I’m not too worried! ... for the time being!

All this to say that it took us almost a year to get this Erasmus organised: in terms of paper work, doing formalities and mentally, so we've anticipated this for a while now, and the fact that we're now so so so close to leaving for Prague is making me very very very excited and very impatient to move!

Bye for now!

Helena

Three, Two, One....... Ahoj Prague!

If a year ago somebody asked me about the likelihood of me moving to the Czech Republic, I would rate it similarly to Poland’s chances of winning the World Cup in football (or any other sport with a bigger audience than cross-country skiing). Not very high. More, I did not even plan on taking a year abroad because frankly, what is the point of that for a person who already has his studies based in a foreign country?! Yet, here I am sitting next to my overly large suitcase, counting days until the departure to Prague. Erasmus!

Why Prague? The idea came into my head during one of those mornings when going to the kitchen for a pint of water is the Mount Everest of effort and commitment. None of the other Erasmus choices really got to me. Stockholm is ridiculously expensive, Utrecht seems just like Luxembourg relocated on a map and Paris has never made it into the top 10 of my favourite cities. On the other hand, Prague is known for its great nightlife, reasonable prices and more than average beer selection. The last argument was very convincing, I must admit! Before writing this post, I begun to wonder what do I actually know about the Czech Republic. They are good in hockey, have quite a ridiculous language, admire the Germans (who doesn’t?) feel superior to Poles (again, who doesn’t?) and have a fairly unorthodox group of comedians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T_uxoV5FuQ. I also had a few blurry memories from spending a New Year’s in Prague two years ago but as I said they were very blurry (as some of you know). My knowledge was widened thanks to a book I got from Helena: “A Xenophobe’s Guide to the Czechs”. I got to know they enjoy mushroom picking and treat Skoda cars as THE source of national pride. Skoda, Skoda, Skoda!

The plans for the year are very ambitious of course. Munich, Budapest, Kraków, Vienna, Warsaw and several other places might have to handle my presence for a while over the course of 2013/14 season. That is if I will not use the Erasmus grant solely for exploring the Czech local spirituous specialities.

All in all it should be an amazing year. This was a very general post; I will try to update the blog quite regularly whenever something interesting happens. Emphasis should be put on the word ‘try’ though. I am sure Helena will be much more regular with it :) 

Jan