Trips

Tours and food

| Saskia

Last Wednesday we had our first meeting at school, which was great! So many people from all over the world! <3 We got a tour through the school building, but I haven’t made any photographs (yet).

Thursday and yesterday we’ve been on a guided tour through the historical center of Prague, Thursday around Malá Straná (west bank of Vltava) and Friday through Staré Město (old town) and the Jewish quarter. All organized by the school, so great!

What’s also great is that we can eat in the canteen from the Charles University with our UMPRUM student card. It was a bit of a hassle to set up, but in the end it works! UMPRUM has it’s own tiny school canteen all down in the basement, but it’s really cramped and there’s not much to choose from. At the Charles University we can choose from a whopping 8 menu’s, all about 2 euros!

I first thought this bread-vanilla sauce thing was a savory dish, but it is indeed sweet. It’s very nice though, and you get good value for your money!

Monday will be my first school day, exciting!

First Round of Sightseeing

| Saskia

So it turned out my roommate is doing ceramics and will not be my classmate when I’m having studio classes.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  We might have elective classes together, though!

Her name is Pan-Ni, by the way, and she looks like this:

The past two days have we spend sightseeing … What else do do in such a beautiful city? We’ve been to the Mucha museum, it was amazing though we weren’t allowed to take any photos. I think I have a favorite Czech artist now! 😀

What I didn’t know was that he was so engaged with his homeland, Moravia (which is now eastern-Czech republic, but when he was born in 1866 it was still part of the Austrian Empire) He really did his best to make the people feel proud of there slavic heritage and you could say his dream came true when Czechoslovakia became independent in 1918. He designed banknotes, post stamps and medaillons for the new country, as well as a series of 20 giant paintings known as the Slav Epic… Those weren’t part of this exhibition, but are in another museum in Prague. You bet I’m going to see those too!

Tomorrow we’ll have our first meeting at the school, I’m excited! 😀

Arrived in Prague!

| Saskia

This is my new home for the coming four months! 😀 My roommate hasn’t come back from her adventures yet, but judging from her food supplies could she be very well the Taiwanese student that’s going to study Film and TV Graphics with me!

The view isn’t that bad either:

Back from Vacation to the Baltics

| Saskia

The reason there weren’t any posts for the past three weeks: holidays. To Latvia and Estonia, to be precise, and a one-day trip to St. Petersburg. 🙂

If you ever to to St. Petersburg (or Moscow), go eat at Теремок (Teremok)! It’s a Russian fast food restaurant, although I can’t say it’s really fast food you’re getting. You can choose between soups, buckwheat and many different blini (Russian pancakes) with meat and vegetables and potatoes or fruit or chocolate. Delicious! And so much better than the McDonalds which is everywhere. >.>

On the way home I suddenly realized how terribly designed my country is – the landscape in Latvia and Estonia isn’t that different at first sight, it’s almost as flat as the Netherlands but with lots and lots of forest. But in a country bigger than mine but with a population that’s less than a tenth from here, there is so much space and nature, it shows it is really different. In the Netherlands, every single square cm has been planned and designed, every field, hill, dike and ditch is man-made. Look at aerial photographs and it’s a checkboard pattern of fields and ditches. Heck, we even create land out of water! I never fully realized that until now.

Another thing I noticed, I feel the people are much closer to nature in Latvia and Estonia. We’ve seen multiple times people collect berries and mushrooms in the forests during our hikes. In the Netherlands there are very little people who do that, even though there are plenty blackberries and raspberries to pick here too. The people who do pick berries are mostly Polish immigrants XD. Some even think it’s weird. Thing is, these plants mostly grow on municipal grounds, so it’s also there were people walk their dogs and the like. I even think it’s illegal – same as it is actually illegal to pick flowers from the roadside when they were planted by the municipality. >.<

Anyway, I’m glad to be back home. 🙂

Too bad school starts in two weeks.