When we arrived in Prague, a student from CULS picked us up. We hopped in his little Ford Focus (all of our bags barely fit), drove on the right side of the road, listened to Kelly Clarkson, and saw some fields on the way to our dorm. Several of my expectations were already busted. Pavel--which is the Czech version of Paul--told us Hitler was the one who changed the driving thing. He said he mostly liked metal music, and would listen to American music, but usually didn't care for the lyrics. (Wait, are Czech's supposed to spend their day's working, and their evenings listening to folk music in some pub?)
On our way to the dorms Pavel said, "Don't get your hopes up too high; the dorm's aren't very nice here."
I'm very thankful he warned us.
Living is very different here. One of the students here made the remark that our dorms are very "Communist Russia." They are small, functional, suite style dorms. The paint on most of the buildings on campus is so bright, it makes me think of the 80s in America. Our bed is a thin pad, and one of the other girls from K-State said her "bed" is three separate cushions.
Pavel gave us an hour to get over the first initial shock of the dorm rooms and then asked if we wanted to go with him to see the city. Of course we said yes.
Pavel and his friend Julius took Ty and I as well as two other American students on the metro to city center. (Prague has a really great transportation system that gets you places really quick. Most people on the public transit are nice, but some will cut you in line.) It was very fun to be showed around. They pointed out some important sights: Tesco, which is the equivalent of Walmart here, and KFC, which apparently is wayyyy better in Prague than in the States.
Ty and I tested out the KFC theory today, and I think KFC is KFC. Ty thinks it's way better here. But anyway, you know how in KFC, McDonald's, Burger King, or anything there are big ketchup dispensers? Well, they don't have those in Prague. We went and asked one of the employees for ketchup and she showed us a little packet and said it would be 8 crowns....... WHAT? (8 pounds is about like 50 cents.) So anyway, I ate my fries without ketchup and resigned to the fact that we probably should just eat Czech food.
Czech food ended up being pretty good! Our student cards weren't officially activated today, so we didn't get the discount we would normally get at the student cafeteria. But for a big dish of some sort of casserole, corn, fountain drinks, and the most delicious eclair-looking-thing I've ever tasted it added up to around ten dollars for both of us. With the student discount it only would have been five! It all tasted great, except the free drink in the cafeteria was this warm sweet tea... no thanks.
My lunch. Also, note the red bull. This girl on campus gave it to me for free, saying it was "for energy!"
We paid with bills, but I think the coins are interesting. Some of them have buildings and some have this cool lion thing standing up on them. We've already acquired something like $40 in crowns. (460 crowns makes us sound much richer!)
Prague has been great so far. Only a couple of people we met have been rude. One was this drunk guy walking around campus who kept rambling on about this black guy he saw, and told us to "fook wey" which I'm pretty sure is something like "eff off" when we didn't respond. Also, the doors here aren't labeled "push" or "pull" here, and the handles on both sides look like pull handles... We've gotten a few looks for that! However, most people have been exceedingly kind. Pavel and Julius were very helpful, and there have been several people who have helped us when we looked lost--which I'm sure is quite often!
I'm really looking forward to meeting more people here and learning about the town.
Oh, and if you're curious about the dorms, there's another post coming about that!
Thank you for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment