Blogs from Czech Republic, Europe - page 235

Today was another typical day of class. We had a rather boring lecture in the morning about civil society (whatever that is...) and a guest lecture in the afternoon about marketing and consumers in the Czech Republic. The second lecture was especially interesting to me. In between lectures we went shopping. I did a little more souvenier shopping and some of the other girls bought clothes. We hung out this afternoon and took naps. Dinner was KFC on the go (my first American fast food here). I swear there are more KFCs here than in the US. After dinner we watched Mean Girls in the room, which was good times. Tomorrow will begin our last full week in the Czech Republic. In some ways, it seems like we just got here, but in other ways it ... read more

today wasn't the fullest day- we had a malvina lecture in the morning (so it wasn't the most exciting...), then about an hour and a half break in which we went to H&M (i bought a cute purple/brown striped tank for $7!) and got some lunch. then we went back to school for a guest lecture. it was actually pretty interesting-- he was from this research company, and actually tailored his presentation a little bit for us since we're advertising students (well not me, but you know...) so he talked about brands, brand loyalties, etc.-- then he tied it into the CR and talked with us about reasons why czechs are less brand loyal than other western nations. after the lecture we went to tesco (this crazy awesome grocery/department store) for a bit, and then came ... read more

Today we got to sleep in before making our way to the Jewish Quarter. First we went to lunch in Old Town...pizza again (we have a hard time deciding what we want to eat). We wandered around Old Town Square again. We finally got to the Jewish Quarter. We bought a ticket that got us into four synagogues, a cemetery, and another building. Maxine served as a wonderful tour guide through the museums in the Synagogues, letting us know what everything was and saving us the trouble of reading the displays (luckily, there was some English). The first synagogue was the Pinkas Synagogue. It had the names of every Czech person who died in the Holocaust. The names had to be written three times, re-written once because of the Communists and once because of flooding. There ... read more

My friend Mickey will be happy to know that I am officially fluent in public transportation. She once commented in the office that “Christy’s version of public transportation is a taxi.” (I don’t deny it). Yes, I have taken the occasional BART ride to and from the airport and I did take the bus once (with a chaperon) in my five years in San Francisco, but now I am fully versed in the language of trains, busses, metros, subways, undergrounds, ferries and now cable cars! Today (again pretending this is present day), traveling from Switzerland to Prague, I took two cable cars, two busses, three trains, one plane and one taxi . . . all by 2:30 in the afternoon! When I was traveling with Wendy, she said every time I go to a new city, ... read more

we decided a few days ago (because we like to have a set plan) that we were going to visit terezin on saturday, and the jewish quarter on sunday. so last night we made a plan to leave at 9:15, ride on the metro to the bus station and then take the hour bus ride there. we hoped to make a 10:00 bus, and then figured we would just take as long as we wanted there and then come back in the late afternoon. i was really interested to visit this concentration camp, because i had read about how this was the nazis' model "jewish town" and that it was fixed up for propoganda purposes. rick steves said that they even feature films that the nazis played for the red cross to convince them that they ... read more