Happy One Month Anniversary Czechia!
That's right everyone I have officially survived my first month here in Czechia. This past month has been one of reflection, learning, and new experiences. It is one I am so beyond lucky to have enjoyed with my whole heart. There have been ups and downs for sure, but overall this first month has done nothing but make me more excited than ever before for my next nine months here.
Normally in my posts I simply tell you about what I've been up to lately and tell you how I'm feeling, but this one is going to be a little bit different. This post is going to focus more on various aspects of life on exchange: living with a host family, school, language , food. I will also include a few updates about my recent trip to Kutná Hora (which was AMAZING), but I feel like I should address a few things that I haven't yet first.
Language: Okay, Czech is hard. It is very different from english in pretty much every way (sentence structure, verb tenses, pronunciation, alphabet), it is probably the most challenging part of exchange here in Czechia. Thankfully I've had lots of time over this past month to work on my Czech, so I can say that it is steadily improving and I am learning new things every single day. Right now, I find my understanding has come a long way from when I first arrived, my reading is a lot better both in terms of understanding the words I'm reading and being able to pronounce them and I'm getting better as well at understanding what people are saying around me and picking out key words. To be honest I doubt that Czech is a language you could learn effectively without being immersed in it. Just being around people who are speaking Czech makes such a huge difference, so while people still talk to me mainly in English, I hear so much Czech that my brain has started to adapt, which is pretty cool.
Host Family: I am lucky to have a really nice host family, they have been so welcoming and kind to me this past month. I am glad that I have ended up in their home. That's not to say though that moving into another family's home has been a totally smooth transition devoid of any weirdness or awkwardness. Honestly, I don't think it matters who your host family is, moving into someone else's home, in which they have pre-established routines and habits is going to be a bit strange. There have certainly been moments where I've felt kind of awkward or weird simply because it's just such a big change to adjust to and it can be a lot to process when everything is taken into consideration. My family has really been great though with helping me understand daily routines and expectations and really taking me into their home with open arms.
Food: Food and meals are another thing that I've had to adjust to here because the structure of meals and the diet here are quite different from their counterparts in Canada. First of all, lunch here is the largest meal of the day as opposed to dinner, and breakfast tends to be quite small. This was definitely something I had to kind of adjust to and that my body had to get used to. Second of all, while Czech food is comprised of ingredients commonly found back home (chicken, potato, bread, ham, cheese) the way it's prepared is quite different. One of the biggest adjustments for me has been the amount of carbs we eat in a day here. Bread is featured in almost every meal, potatoes are eaten almost every day, lots of pastries and carb heavy snacks are also served here between meals. This has been a bit challenging for me to adapt to because at home we limit these foods in our daily diets. Food here is good though, everything has been tasty, and everything is also very fresh. This has been very nice and a welcome change from the very heavily processed foods often served in Canada.
School: School is the final thing I'll touch on in this post. I've already discussed it a little bit in a previous post so all I'll say here is that there are certainly many differences between school in Canada and school here in the Czech Republic (schedule, class organization, the physical school, the subjects), but I've had no problems thus far with my school. My classmates are lovely and all the teachers have been very nice and supportive.
Now I'll also give a short synapsis of my trip to Kutná Hora this past long weekend. We left on Thursday and drove for about an hour and a half. Our first stop was Zámek Kačina, a palace just outside Kutná Hora, It was so lovely and very different from the other castles I've seen here. We then continued on to Kutná Hora where we spent the afternoon just walking around and seeing the town, which was quite beautiful. On Friday we started the day off with a tour of the Czech Silver Mining Museum which was very interesting and that I enjoyed quite a bit. We then carried on to St. Barbara's Cathedral, a UNESCO world heritage site. The cathedral is stunning and is absolutely worth a visit if you are ever in the Czech Republic (Kutná Hora is only about an hour from Prague.) Saturday we spent the morning checking out the Sedlec Ossuary, which was creepy but fascinating, and Kutná Hora's other UNESCO site the Cathedral of the Assumption of our Lady and Saint John the Baptist (Sedlec Cathedral). Again absolutely stunning and definitely worth a visit. To finish our trip we lastly visited Zámek Žleby, a real-life fairy tale castle. Žleby was my favorite castle I've seen yet it looks like where you'd expect to find Cinderella.
So this was a bit of a long post, but I hope that all of you who are reading have found it interesting or helpful if you're maybe someone who is considering going on exchange. I am so happy here and am so thankful both for this opportunity and for the fact that I chose to do this as opposed to going straight into university. Until next time - Grace
