Feb 26 - Prague was 2 weeks ago but better late than never!! ...right?

Ok ok ok... I know I was in Prague like two weeks ago and just posting this now, I’m just so busy here!  Actually it’s more so the fact that it’s taken me 12 or so days to put my thoughts together!  We did so much in Prague and saw so many incredible things that I just didn’t know how to write it all.  I guess the best way to do this is headings by day.  Before we get started, here are a few interesting facts about Prague:

·    It’s not a very big city, population is about 1.21M and 4 days was plenty of time to see the city

·    Weather was not as nice as I had hoped for the journey south.  It was about -1 to -5 the whole time with a little bit of snow and we had sun for ¾ days.

·    It is SUPER cheap J We lived like royalty for the few days we were there, especially in comparison to Copenhagen.  1USD = 17 KC Crown, and the average meal cost about 100KC!

·    Little to NO English (closer to “no” than “little”) which meant that communicating with anyone was VERY difficult!

·    Czech Republic’s national sport is hockey; however, the most popular sport it soccer.  Little to my dismay, Jaromir Jagr was not spotted in Prague, nor did I even find a hockey arena... 0/2 in Europe so far L

Day 1 – Arrival in Prague!

Well we were on the plane at 9:05am which means that we got to Prague at about 10:15 and were ready to drop our stuff off and get exploring!  This was the hostel which cost next to nothing...

The rest of the day consisted of some walking around and “Czech-ing” out the city – haha! J Basically, the city is split into two areas: the Old Town Square and New Town Square.  Here’s a picture from New Town Square.  Throughout the town, the cobblestone and the look of the buildings is just amazing!  It’s hard to see, but in behind me at the far end of New Town Square is the National Museum in Prague.

Here are a few more pictures of the city... They really have no significant purpose; I just found the entire city gorgeous and would snap pictures of anything!

I have a lot of pictures from the Old Town Square as well, but on Day 3 we went for a big walking tour and I will post them under that heading.  The rest of the day consisted of walking around and checking things out.  The weather was amazing so we took full advantage of that!  Of course, the plan was to go out on the town that evening, but with the early flight and tons of walking we were way too tired!  So early bed and ready for day two...

Day 2 – Train Ride!

When we woke up it was not hear as nice as the day we arrived so we planned a day trip to Kutna Hora.  Kutna Hora is a small town outside which apparently was founded in 1142. 

(Train to Kunta Hora à First European Trainride!)

The main attraction in the town is the Sedlec Ossuary, which is a small church which contains around 40,000-70,000 skeletons and bones of people who died during the Black Plague.  Apparently it was everyone’s last wish to be buried in that church, but obviously it wasn’t big enough to bury everyone outside, so mass graves were created. 

(Sedlec Ossuary)

Years later, a woodworker was hired to “organize” all the bones in a way to commemorate human life and death, and this is what he came up with...

(Yes... All bones behind me!  Arranged so that every bone in the human body is used)

(Other notable decorations in the church)

After leaving the church, we had a little while until the train came so we went for a little walk.  I thought that we were just killing time and that there wasn’t too much to see so I was getting a little bit bored, but then we stumbled across this which made the whole walk worth it!

         

(Left: Nothing special, just really pretty.  Right: Cathedral of St. Barbara built in 1388)

It ended up getting a little bit nicer by the end of the day so when we got back we did a little more walking around, but again I’m going to save that for the walking tour! 

That evening (after the weather went sour again), a couple of us went out to find some traditional Czech food, and after going from smokey pub to smokey pub in the rain/snow mix, we finally found a little restaurant full of locals (remember the language barriers I mentioned...) and sat down to give the food a try!  I ended up getting Czech goulash which is delicious!

(Basically beef in a brown sauce and bread dumplings)

Intentions again were to go out in the evening, but after all the walking and touring, exhaustion settled in quickly and an early bed time it was, again.

Day 3 – Walking Tour!

Now you get to see my favourite part of Prague!  I thought that the Old Town Square was amazing!!  We ended up finding one of the free tours, and we got super lucky because our guide was amazing!  It was supposed to be a 1.5-2 hour tour and she took us around for 3 hours, and the facts she had were really good!

Pretty much this is Old Town Square:

(Top: Statue of an Old Protestant Leader during the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants.  Bottom: Tyn Church)

(Clocktower! Amazing J Notice the small man in yellow at the top of the tower?  Trumpet player who plays a little jingle every hour on the hour)

   (Top: Amazing! Bottom: St. Nicholas Cathedral)

So the tour started in Old Town Square and from what I remember about the guide saying, is that during the time of conflict between the Catholics and Protestants the Old Town Square would be a common area for executions.  On the ground outside of the Old Town Hall (Clocktower) there are 27 crosses embedded in the cobblestone in memory of the 27 rebellion leaders who were executed.  In front of the clock tower, is an amazing astronomical clock with incredible detailed work!  You can also go up the clock tower which I definitely did to see really good view of the Square and Prague in general. 

(Top: 27 Crosses Bottom: Astronomical Clock on the Clock Tower)

(Top: Up the Clock Tower, view of Tyn Church.  Bottom: Notice in the picture the back end of the building?  It was destroyed by the Germans in WW2 and in the end, they decided not to rebuild it, but created a park where the building used to stand)

Next Stop on the tour was the Power Tower which used in the 17^th century to store gun powder.   After the Powder Tower we ended up at the famous Charles Bridge!  It’s about 500 meters long and was built by King Charles.  Legend has it that he was given a note that had the numbers 1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1 on it and he interpreted that as the construction for the bridge needed to start on July 9^th, 1357 at 5:31am (Year = 1357, Day = 9^th, July = 7, time = 5:31am).  Apparently he was given that note 14 years before that so they waited 14 years for that one moment in time just to start construction...)

     

(Top: Powder Tower. Center: Entrance to Charles Bridge. Bottom: On Charles Bridge looking over the river)

After touring around Prague on the beautiful sunny and freezing cold day, we ended up at the Lennon wall, which is basically a huge wall that is covered in nice graffiti and you can leave a message on it.  Tons of people have written on it over the years.  Beside the Lennon wall is a small bridge that has tons of locks attached to it with little love notes.  Once it’s locked, then you throw your key into the river and hope that you stay together with the person on the lock!

(Left: Locks attached to the bridge. Right: Lennon Wall)

(Group shot at the Lennon Wall)

(Cool!)

Day 4 – Prague Castle

The last day meant a trek up to the very top of the hill to see the Prague Castle.  It was INCREDIBLE!  I cannot get over how these structures were build at the time they were!  Construction for the castle started around 881...wild!

(Left: Changing of the Guard. Right: Looking up at the castle – pictures do NO justice!)

(Top: Some architechure. Botton: Castle in the evening from way back! – Again, it’s SO much better in real life)

Well, there’s not much more to say about Prague...it took 2 weeks but I finally got my story out.  It was incredible and there’s nothing in North America like this!  I can’t wait until my next adventure J

Love and miss everyone (and thanks for the patience!)

JT

Feb 7 - Week 3!

Wow time is flying! I can't believe it's already February, one month down :(  I don't want to think about that already.

Well I don't have as many exciting stories as last week because I haven't really done any more touring around.  The weather hasn't been great this week and everyone around here (including me) is getting sick, boo! 

We started classes this week.  So I have Monday, Tuesday and Thursday classes and each of the are 3 hours long...it really drags on, but atleast there's 2 15-minute breaks.  My classes are pretty cool so far!  The first one is Intercultural Business Communication, and it's neat because for the group work our prof made us split into groups with people from another country.  My group includes 2 Americans, a Dane, a guy from Chile and a girl from Hong Kong, so it's pretty cool to work with people with completely different opinions.  The second class is Management of Creative Processes and to sum it up, the textbook is called, "Sport and Leisure Operations Management".  Do you really think I need to explain further...obviously I like that course!  In fact, finally a textbook I can read for more than 10 minutes at a time lol. 

Since I've been here, I haven't had too many problems adjusting, and I don't feel like culture shock has really affected me...probably because I love it and I've made so many good friends :)  Our rez gets along so well!  I feel like since our old rez got "shut down" we were able to bond over all being moved to the ghetto and it's made us a lot closer.  Last night, we decided to have a big rez potluck. I thought it was pretty cool because we just decided to do this on our own instead of it being organized by the school.  It was awesome too! Everyone made SUCH good food, and we decided that it's probably going to be a Sunday night tradition.  Of course there was a little added excitement to the evening...  I was cooking with my friend Amy, and literally 2 minutes after I had just finished saying, "this is so much fun, we should do it on a regular basis..." the FIRE ALARM rang haha.  There was definitely a lot of smoke and the fire department had to come but it was no major issue.  My friend on the 1st floor was trying to make french fries (I really don't know why she was cooking, I taught her how to do laundry for the first time last Sunday) and she spilled oil on the burner, which didn't cause a fire just tons of smoke!  It was pretty funny though!  But then dinner went on and it was nice to have everyone hanging out together.

I don't really have any good pictures to post this week,  but here's one from the International Buffet we had during Welcome Week.  This is a bunch of us from my rez...

The funny part of this picture is that there are 2 Aussies, 1 Estonian, 7 American, and 8 Canadians... no wonder I haven't been impacted by culture shock...there seems to be a lack of diversity amongst our rez!

I guess on the topic of culture I can talk about some of the differences I've noticed.  The one biggy that hasn't been too much of an issue is language.  I'm actually really happy that everyone here speaks english because I think it would be really frustrating to never have people understand what you're trying to tell them.  The only time I encounter language problems is over the phone...like trying to call the bank.  Pretty much any other time a real person can figure out that you don't speak Danish when they say something to you and get a blank look in return.  It's funny because sometimes when I'm at a the check-out at a store, I don't really want to go through the whole "I-don't-speak-Danish-thing" so I just act like I know what he or she is saying based on the situation at the time but that back-fired on me once and I'm pretty sure the lady thought I was completely stupid because she kept telling me to do something and I was just smiling trying and trying to pay.  Eventually I pulled out the I-don't-speak-Danish thing.  Another thing that keeps throwing me off is the bathrooms here! Sometimes they're unisex and others there's a men's/women's...so if you come to Denmark make sure you check it out before you walk into the wrong one!  What I do love about the bathrooms is that there isn't stalls inside, they're full on mini-bathrooms...with a full door and some even have a sink inside the "stall" which is awesome.  With Denmark being "Green" and all, all of the toilets have a dual flushing system so you only use half the water when it's necessary...pretty cool!  I don't know if this is a Danish thing or a Jenn thing (probably the latter) but I feel like whenever I go though a door, it's always the opposite from what I feel like I should do...when I think "push" it's "pull" and vice versa...but like I said, probably more of a Jenn thing.  The time difference is kind of annoying as well...I actually cannot watch hockey because 7pm games don't start until 1am...which isn't an awful start time because I'm usually still awake, but that means a 3-3:30am end time which is too late!  Last night we stayed up and watched the Superbowl, which ended at 4am!

But all in all, I'm still enjoying it.

I'll have plenty to write about after this weekend because from Thursday until Sunday I will be in PRAGUE!! I'm super excited and cannot wait :)  I better start doing some research though and figuring out a little bit about the culture!

Hopefully everyone's still having a great time back at home!

Love & miss everyone,
JT:)

Jan 26th - Onto Week 2!

Hey Everyone!

It's been a while since I posted last, but I've been SUPER busy here!  We have tons of activities that are planned each day and night from the buddy crew so there's not much time to sit around.  I guess I left off last with the boat cruise that we took... so long ago now haha.

Since then:

We took the time on Saturday afternoon to go and see what Christiania was all about and wow - what a different world!  When we were walking towards it, I said to my friend, "Hmm, do you think we'll know when we're in the area?  Or will we just pass through without even noticing?"  Let me tell you, you know!  I WISH I could have taken picture inside, but everywhere is posted "NO PHOTOS" so I really didn't want to risk someone smashing my camera.  It was crazy though, there was huge oil barrels everywhere that made little fire pits, all the housing buildings were graffettii'ed (but nice artwork not vandalized), and next to the hotdog stand and t-shirt stand is the marijuana stand - yes, marijuana.  It's legal in that little area :S Needless to say though, as soon as the sun started to go down, it was time to get the heck out of Christiania!  Here's a pic of the entrance...

On Sundays in Denmark it is a rest day and nothing is open, so we decided that it would be a perfect day to head into downtown Copenhagen by the canals and harbour to sightsee! It was awesome :)  It was certainly quite the walk, and pretty chilly by the seaside - but for all those who live in Ottawa, I shouldn't be complaining about the cold lol.  The thing about European cities (I remember from Stolkholm as well) is the architecture of the buildings, it's amazing!  In Denmark, they were telling us that they always try and keep re-using the old buildings since it costs just as much to renovate it from the inside as it does to tear it down and build a new modern building.  They are so old and have so much history that it would be terrible to tear them down.  During the walk I was amazed at just the buildings themselves! The first stop was the harbour port which was beautiful - it's in all of the picture you see when you google "Denmark" because of all the colourful houses and the ships.  I <3 it!  It leads to the main canal that goes into Copenhagen, and was one of the first ports that was dug out during the construction of the canal. 

After the port we walked along the canal and saw the Opera House from across the water, which is super pretty at night.  The next stop was the Royal Palace.  It's not like Buckingham Palace where it's all one big building, in Copenhagen there are 4 smaller buildings all in the same location.  Apparently one is where the Queen lives and the other is for the Prince and Princess - not too sure what the other 2 are for.  So the first picture is by the entrance to the Royal Palace and then is the classic picture with the guards.  It was funny because the guy was moving his head/eyes but would not say a word obviously, and we were each trying to take a pic but no one wanted to be the one to get in trouble for going too close.  So each picture one of us is a little bit closer than the last person lol.  He just kept starring but not saying anything - kind of intimidating! The funnier moment was when a few of the girls tried to take a picture in between two guards and just as they were posing a bell sounded and the two guards SMACKED their guns on the ground simultaneously and I swear the girls all had a stroke right there - it would have been funnier if that was caught on camera!

Finally, we reached the last stop - one of the most significant tourist attractions in Copenhagen...any guesses? 

The Little Mermaid! I couldn't believe how little she was! And you were allowed to go right up and take pictures!  My buddy told me that apparently it is common for people to steal her head...a little weird lol

Well I have so much more to write, but I have to get ready for tonights activity which is Danish folk dancing.  Should be a thriller... 

I'll be sure to wrap up this weeks' activities on my next blog!

Miss everyone,

JT :)

Jan - 20th (Already lost track of Day #)

Ok... So I know it's been a while since my last blog in Paris airport, and here's the deal why:

AIR FRANCE LOST MY LUGGAGE!

What a stressful few days!  Now, I know this stuff happens 28740986 times a day, but the story behind it is what made it so frustrating for me...

We had to load the airplane from the tarmack in Paris, and I just so happened to look over and saw my 2 big red bags sitting on the baggage trolley after all the other bags had been loaded on the plane.  I went over to the attendant, and said to her, "Ma'am, I believe those are my bags sitting on the trolley, can you please make sure they get on the airplane?".  Well she treated me like I'm dumb and said, "Well miss, in this airport people tend to have many similar bags, it's probably not yours".  Since they're pretty generic red suitcases, I figured she may have a point,  but I was 99.999% sure they were mine.  Regardless, I boarded the plane, looked out my window, and STILL saw them there!  This time, I could see the little Canadian tags I put on them so I knew 100% they were mine, so I called the stewardess over and explained to her that those ARE my bags and that they really needed to be on the plane since I was heading to a foreign country for 6 months and I live in Canada.  She was nice and went to take care of it for me (or so I thought) and then after talking to the baggage people from the front of the plane, she came back to me and said, "There you go sweety, it's all taken care of, nothing to worry about".  Pffft. I turned my head for 2 minutes and when I looked back out the window the trolley was gone, so I assumed it went around to the other side of the plane to be loaded and I relaxed a little bit.  After arrival in Paris airport: no bags. 

Not only did I not have clean clothes, but I didn't have toiletries or my adapters for my computer so I was literally stranded with nothing!  Oh, atleast the airline gives you a grooming kit to get by without your luggage; the only thing is that the makers of the kit felt it was more important to have 2 Q-tips, rather than shampoo/conditioner!  ATLEAST people in rez helped me out!

Anyways the bags arrived yesterday afternoon so my story gets to the good parts now..  After getting off the plane at 6:00ish and being dead tired, I met up with my Danish buddy - who is awesome!  He got me back to my place - which I totally appreciated because after that luggage mess, the LAST thing I wanted to do was attempt to use the subway system! Then since I had nothing to unload, we went directly to the intro night activity which was just a small meet'n'greet at the campus pub.

The next day I started my Danish crash course - wow what an incomprehendable langauge! There's not even a chance that I'll remember how to say "my name is..." by the end of the week!! But atleast I've been able to meet people through it.  On Tuesday night, we did a boat cruise on the canals - Copenhagen's canals kick Ottawa's canals' butt! It was AMAZING! I want to do it again during the day though, because NONE of my pictures turned out unfortunately.  I saw upclose the Mermaid - who has returned from her World Tour in China.  The statue is actually SO small! 

Wednesday night was the international buffet night, so everyone had to bring a dish from their home country.  We made pancakes just so we could have the maple syrup, and nanaimo bars (which we were missing ingredients for, but still was one of the most popular dishes haha).  The other Canadian people in my rez made poutine and it was actually really funny to see other peoples' disgusted faces when they heard what it was, but then how they loved it when they tried it! 

My rez is primarily Canadian/American, and it's Day 4 and there's a BIG rivalry when it comes to beer pong/flip cup/beer baseball.  I'm not kidding... last night in beer baseball it went into 12 innings when the Americans beat us.  Geeeze, I can't even imagine the pressure Olympians have after the intensity of representing our country in a drinking game!

I have soo much to say, but this is already taking forever and you're probably sick of reading it already so I'll end it here, but just to ease everyone's mind, I'm LOVING it now that my luggage situation is settled and I'm meeting more people.  My rez is great! In fact - I believe that the whole switching rez situation somewhat made us closer.  We call eachother the Svanevej family now :)

Well, I'm going to try and travel Copenhagen a bit this weekend so I should have pics to come!

Miss everyone!

(Boat Tour at night, stunning lights, but pics didn't turn out well)



JT:)

Day 2 - Jan 17

I'm exhausted!

I got on the plane around 9ish (Canadian time) and got off the plane this morning in Paris at 9:30am Paris time (3:30am Canadian time!) and I didn't get to sleep once on the plane.  That can definitely be attributed to nerves and excitement! 

So now for the 6 hour layover...  I tried to get Air France to switch me onto the convenient 12:45 flight to Copenhagen, but of course, the plane was full in economy class and 500 euros was not happening for a first class ticket! So I had to wait, and they also wouldn't let me in the fancy lounge (which I only wanted so I could shower lol) so I'm stuck in the main airport with every other regular flying customer.  Thank God for Christine (my cousin for those of you who don't know) who burned me all of Glee Season 1 because that's helped speed up the flight/layover :) 

To Steph and Christie: I got a Christie seat on the airplane!! Yeah, the window seat that I was highly looking forward to ended up being a blank empty space full of airplane wall! Couldn't believe it...jokes on me haha.  But it all worked out because the plane was empty so I snuck across the plane and grabbed a real window seat on the other side. 

I was really looking forward to the landing in Paris, but unfortunately it was SUPER foggy... like soooo foggy that I didn't see anything until we were on the runway!  I was super ambitious during the landing too.  I had created all these plans to taxi into Paris and hang out at the Eiffel Tower for a couple hours during the layover; however, those plans didn't work out A) because of weather, B) because it's much further of a hike than I had anticipated.   So in the end, it means sitting here typing this blog, finally posting it, and watching more Glee for the final 2 hours.

Before I left, Jessica and Janet wrote me amazing letters that I wasn't allowed to read until on the airplane, and I saved them for the layover.  Your letters brought a tear to my eye :) Thanks so much for them <3

Well, that's all I have to say for now!  I'll try to write back tomorrow... tonight I get to look forward to an evening of Danish Hygge (whatever that is....)!

Aurevoir de Paris!

JT :)

P.S. Picture from the airplane is pending, I don't feel like messing around with the cords right now lol

It's Finally Here!!

JAN 16 - Day 1!

Today is the day...possibly why it's 3:48am and I am not asleep yet.  I can't stop thinking about what's ahead! 

I figured I had to start a blog since everyone else I know on an exchange did...  I guess as time goes on I will come up with some better things to write about, but for the next 40 hours or so (in my pilot post) you'll be reading about some rather uneventful moments a.k.a. my 6 hour layover in the Paris airport.

Well, this is about the extent of what I am able to blog about at this ridiculous hour of the morning...stay tuned for more on whether or not I was successfully able to pack 2 suitcases under 50lbs each!

FARVEL!  ...."Bye" in Danish, according to answers.com :)