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Published: June 21st 2009
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The Prague Zoo, Skoda tour, Laterna Magicka, and tram calamities
So, I'm a bit behind in my blogs, here's a summary on what's happened the last week.
1)
Visited the Prage Zoo, which was the most beautiful zoo I've ever scene. With rolling hills and real-life simulations of the animals' natural habitats (like the Brazillian jungle and the Africa saranghetti), it really was an amazing experience, plus the weather was beautiful. There's is a mix of free roaming animals and one's in exhibits, so the ones that are hard to catch sights off free roaming can easily be viewed in the exhibit, like the gorillas. I went with a group of students, and we were all running around like little kids. My fellow students started having a fit when the tigers started humping eachother, and there was a full 5 minutes in park that were all standing around in a circle practicing whistling with our teeth (like to call a taxi). My favorite exhibit was the giraffes, because they were surprisingly friendly and I was standing about 2 feet from one staring right at me (no glass). There are a TON of monkies in the park, and I must
Skoda Supreme
this gigantic car has 3 inches thick of bullet proof glass and weighs several tons. It was used by a president of China. say the miniature one's often have faces that look remarkably similar to a human child. The park is HUGE and takes atleast 5 hours, but I would definetly recommend going if you have time, especially if the weather is nice. Afterwards, where did we go to eat? (hint, we are students) You guessed it, McDonalds, because unfortunately it's the quickiest and easiest thing. The childishness continued (I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing) 😉 But imagine, here's all these business students, sitting in McDonalds, battling with their Happy Meal toys and discussing all the best OLD Disney shows and Nickololodeon cartoons (a.k.a Hey Arnold, Rugrats, Rocket Power, Even Stevens, sigh, those were the days). We made quite a spectacle.
2)
The Skoda car plant Skoda is the largest car manufacturer in the Czech Republic, and at one time employed 6000 workers. I went with my school program to tour the factory, and we got to see how cars are put together. They were really secretive and forbid us to take pictures within the plant, though I may or may not have snuck in a couple of pictures anyway.
3) Saw a modern
dance mixed-media show called Lanterna Magika. Pretty much it was a mix of random surrealist video clips and modern dance. Parts were good (for example, the male dancers danced very masculinly as opposed to many American male dancers which because of our culture dance more femininely), but overall it was obviously catered to tourists (all English subtitles, the video clips basically an advertisement for Prague's tourist attractions) that it took away from it. We ate McDonalds after that too.
4)
The tram calamityThe trams are apparently undergoing reconstruction, so on the way back from TESCO I discovered the tram to my dorm no longer existed. Instead random unlabeled buses were traveling the tram tracks and I had no idea what to do, so I just got on a bus that a lot of people were getting on. It was of course the wrong one and I ended up on the opposite side of town. Got off the bus once everyone was forced off, and wandered around for 5 minutes with no idea where I was (I though I was just going to TESCO for the millionth time, so I didn't bring a map). I heard English being spoken by some people 50 feet up
racing car
Skoda is known for it's successful racing car in the Rallye Monte Carlo. This car is worth $1,000,000 the sidewalk, so I caught up to them. It was a group of 3 recent college graduates, doing a tour around Europe before they started work. They were looking for some internet cafe, so I wandered around with them, and actually once we got to familiar area ended up being there guide (I can recognize landmarks by now). We found the cafe, they all logged into the Internet cafe with their iPhones. They were quite the characters. A finance major, an accountant, and an economist, in boisteroius voices they discussed the economy and the corporate world, reading various entries from Urban dictionary.com about PriceWaterCoopers (who the accountant was starting work for) and other famed less-than-optimal working conditions companies. Almost everything went
straight over my head, but they were really nice and insisted on paying for my beer (the first I've had since I've been here). I must say, I don't have a taste for beer thus far, but the locals insist my mind will change once I try the authentic Czech dark beer. The verdict's still out.
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