June 16- London to Prague, but not really.Today I spent a couple of hours with the London study abroad group and preparing for my new journey before meeting the Prague group in London. It felt a little strange to be in the same city as I had been in, but with an entirely new group of people. Nonetheless it was great to meet them all, and, admittedly, to not be suffering from the same jet lag as they were. We spent some time wandering around and visiting the British Museum, where we unexpectedly got to see Cleopatra. After a while, everyone who had just flown in was pretty exhausted, so I was able to meet up with the Londoners one last time to watch the U.S. win a world cup game!
June 17-London tried to tell me it was time to leave.
Today's events were rather unexpected, but I figured that my journey had gone smoothly up to this point so I shouldn't be too upset about it. We started the day off with a guided London tour. There are only about 20 people in our Prague group altogether, whereas there were about 130 in London, so right away things were much easier. We saw all of the traditional London sights, and then had lunch in Covent Garden, where we were planning out our day. I was going to do a few things that I hadn't gotten around to doing yet, such as the Tower of London, St. Paul's, the London Eye, and other such things that I'm not really sure how I hadn't done yet. However, upon leaving a restaurant in Covent Garden, my new roommate Lauren noticed her purse was missing, and I noticed my wallet wasn't in my purse. It was pretty clear we had become victims of pickpocketing, probably since we were in such a touristy area. So, we certainly had some early roommate bonding, as we spend the majority of the day at the police station, on the tube, or walking around to different banks before we finally found a helpful one.
On the plus side, I finally tried fish and chips, which was a lot more delicious than I was expecting. Also, Lauren eventually got her purse back. Someone returned it to the police station. All of the cash was gone, but everything else was there.
I also managed to take some typical Londony photos in between the police station/bank-hopping activity:
At the end of the day, we thought we had missed all of our opportunities to do anything we had planned, but we ended up making it on the London Eye just before it was closed. It was like a dramatic movie: we arrived from the police station just after our friends had gotten on and bought our tickets already, so we thought we had wasted our money. We resolved to the fact that this was simply how the day was going to go, so we were just wandering around waiting for them. Suddenly our other roommate came running off the Eye and handed us our tickets, and we were one of the last groups rushed on. Yaay.
The view from the Eye was especially beautiful because the sun was setting and the city lights started to come on. We ended the day very content that at least we got to do something in London that day. I felt pretty badly for my roommate, because that is a pretty sucky thing to happen the day after you arrive in a foreign country. However, I just took it as a sign that it was time to leave London.
My new roommate, Lauren, and I
London Observations and Conclusions
London was a wonderful city, and I'm certain that there are a million other things I could have done there if I stayed longer. I noticed that it was very similar to New York, though, so while it was sad to leave I was ready for a new experience.
Overall I would sum up the attitude that Londoners have toward Americans as similar to the one New Yorkers have toward New Jerseyans. They make fun of Americans and American culture constantly, but they use American products, listen to American music, and so on. Also, when speaking to Londoners one-on-one, I noticed a lot of them say that they know that other Brits
make fun of Americans for being loud in public places (we really are; it's embarrassing), but that they personally love how enthusiastic Americans are in general. Londoners always seem so much more eager to strike up conversation with an American than a fellow Brit, because they say Americans are so much friendlier and pleasant to talk to.
Overall, it's interesting and confusing. The general public seems to embrace their reserved and quieter culture, often mock Americans for the opposite, but on an individual level, many really do like to meet and talk with Americans. It's hard to measure the accuracy of all of this, but those have been my observations. I guess if you measure what a group seems to do vs. what individuals seem to do, they are almost always different, which doesn't really seem to make sense, does it? I don't know if any of this really makes sense? So I will just keep ending my sentences with question marks?
June 18- Farewell, London!
4:15 AM left for the airport to fly to Prague!
Arrival in Praha 6:
We arrived in a daze, but were awake enough to
know that we loved the beautiful city immediately. We were met by some very
friendly Czech guides, who are our program leaders. They informed us that, being
friendly, they are not typical Czechs, so we should not at all expect that from
the other locals. Our cultural event guide is awesome and has more wisdom than
any of us can describe. His name is Zdenek, but he said that students always
call him Z, because in his 20 years of working with AIFS there has not been one
group who could really pronounce his name correctly. Upon introducing himself,
he told us, “It is my job to make sure you explore the city with open eyes. I
would say about 95% of visitors look at it but don’t really see it.”
He and the other guides took us to a traditional Czech restaurant for dinner, where I tried beef goulash with dumplings. It was a delicious traditional dish, and we were told to become accustomed to bread, meat, and potatoes, because they eat it all the time here. I think the amount of walking they do evens out the food, but their beer is also truly cheaper than water, so I’m not quite sure.
First Czech restaurant experience (the language barrier was clear very immediately):
Upon walking home from the restaurant we got a taste of how beautiful the city is, but it was nothing compared to the sights that would come to see. Z left us after that, gesturing to the setting sun and claiming in his Dumbledore-manner, “Now, the city is yours.”
(I guess this close-up of plants doesn't really show you the city, but we weren't actually in the city-city part yet, so 'tis the best I could do)
Afterwards we discovered an outdoor music festival close to our dorm, so we spent some time listening to some catchy Czech music even though we couldn’t understand it. It was pretty cool, but it didn’t take long for us to notice how tired we were, so we ended our evening explorations there.
Much more to come soon!
June 17-London tried to tell me it was time to leave.
Today's events were rather unexpected, but I figured that my journey had gone smoothly up to this point so I shouldn't be too upset about it. We started the day off with a guided London tour. There are only about 20 people in our Prague group altogether, whereas there were about 130 in London, so right away things were much easier. We saw all of the traditional London sights, and then had lunch in Covent Garden, where we were planning out our day. I was going to do a few things that I hadn't gotten around to doing yet, such as the Tower of London, St. Paul's, the London Eye, and other such things that I'm not really sure how I hadn't done yet. However, upon leaving a restaurant in Covent Garden, my new roommate Lauren noticed her purse was missing, and I noticed my wallet wasn't in my purse. It was pretty clear we had become victims of pickpocketing, probably since we were in such a touristy area. So, we certainly had some early roommate bonding, as we spend the majority of the day at the police station, on the tube, or walking around to different banks before we finally found a helpful one.
On the plus side, I finally tried fish and chips, which was a lot more delicious than I was expecting. Also, Lauren eventually got her purse back. Someone returned it to the police station. All of the cash was gone, but everything else was there.
I also managed to take some typical Londony photos in between the police station/bank-hopping activity:
At the end of the day, we thought we had missed all of our opportunities to do anything we had planned, but we ended up making it on the London Eye just before it was closed. It was like a dramatic movie: we arrived from the police station just after our friends had gotten on and bought our tickets already, so we thought we had wasted our money. We resolved to the fact that this was simply how the day was going to go, so we were just wandering around waiting for them. Suddenly our other roommate came running off the Eye and handed us our tickets, and we were one of the last groups rushed on. Yaay.
The view from the Eye was especially beautiful because the sun was setting and the city lights started to come on. We ended the day very content that at least we got to do something in London that day. I felt pretty badly for my roommate, because that is a pretty sucky thing to happen the day after you arrive in a foreign country. However, I just took it as a sign that it was time to leave London.
My new roommate, Lauren, and I
London Observations and Conclusions
London was a wonderful city, and I'm certain that there are a million other things I could have done there if I stayed longer. I noticed that it was very similar to New York, though, so while it was sad to leave I was ready for a new experience.
Overall I would sum up the attitude that Londoners have toward Americans as similar to the one New Yorkers have toward New Jerseyans. They make fun of Americans and American culture constantly, but they use American products, listen to American music, and so on. Also, when speaking to Londoners one-on-one, I noticed a lot of them say that they know that other Brits
make fun of Americans for being loud in public places (we really are; it's embarrassing), but that they personally love how enthusiastic Americans are in general. Londoners always seem so much more eager to strike up conversation with an American than a fellow Brit, because they say Americans are so much friendlier and pleasant to talk to.
Overall, it's interesting and confusing. The general public seems to embrace their reserved and quieter culture, often mock Americans for the opposite, but on an individual level, many really do like to meet and talk with Americans. It's hard to measure the accuracy of all of this, but those have been my observations. I guess if you measure what a group seems to do vs. what individuals seem to do, they are almost always different, which doesn't really seem to make sense, does it? I don't know if any of this really makes sense? So I will just keep ending my sentences with question marks?
June 18- Farewell, London!
4:15 AM left for the airport to fly to Prague!
Arrival in Praha 6:
He and the other guides took us to a traditional Czech restaurant for dinner, where I tried beef goulash with dumplings. It was a delicious traditional dish, and we were told to become accustomed to bread, meat, and potatoes, because they eat it all the time here. I think the amount of walking they do evens out the food, but their beer is also truly cheaper than water, so I’m not quite sure.
First Czech restaurant experience (the language barrier was clear very immediately):
Upon walking home from the restaurant we got a taste of how beautiful the city is, but it was nothing compared to the sights that would come to see. Z left us after that, gesturing to the setting sun and claiming in his Dumbledore-manner, “Now, the city is yours.”
(I guess this close-up of plants doesn't really show you the city, but we weren't actually in the city-city part yet, so 'tis the best I could do)
Afterwards we discovered an outdoor music festival close to our dorm, so we spent some time listening to some catchy Czech music even though we couldn’t understand it. It was pretty cool, but it didn’t take long for us to notice how tired we were, so we ended our evening explorations there.
New Prague travel companions:
Lindsay, Laura, Holly, Lauren, and Evans
Much more to come soon!
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