Hello from Czech!

Hello Hello!

Well I've made it safely to the Czech Republic! Our first plane from Omaha left Sunday morning, followed by a 6 hour layover in Memphis, TN. My dear parents picked me up at the airport since I had such a long layover, and we enjoyed the Olive Garden as well as Graceland. What a layover, huh? Our 8ish hour plane to Amsterdam would have been much better had I been able to sleep... but that doesn't really happen for me on planes unfortunately. We then had a short layover in Amsterdam, a plane to Prague, and finally a bus ride to Olomouc (pronounced a-la-moats). When we arrived we got our room assignments, unpacked, and after 2 days of traveling and barely any sleep, I went to bed!

The school here is much different than universities in the states. Our dorms, which are by the cafeteria, are across town from the classrooms, so we have to take the tram to class. The dorms are nice, a bit small, but nothing to complain about.. except the blood stains on the wall by my bed. Ew. We share a suite with 4 other rooms, and there's 2 bathrooms and a tiny kitchen. My roomate and I have met 2 of our suitemates, 1 Czech student and 1 exchange student from England who's been here for 4 years... both guys... which is weird, but they both seemed friendly. (It's ok mom, we never see them, don't worry!) There is also a girl across the hall, but we just saw her once.

Yesterday we had an orientation to Palacky (pronounced Palasky) University where we have a Czech language class and then a lecture (pretty much about their country, from politics to music, art, history, etc.) each day. I then took a nap, being quite exhausted, and later had my frist trip to a Czech supermarket, which was pretty much like Walmart. Got a few essentials -Nutella & bread and banana's. (Brit & Anna, I knew you would appreciate that!) We survived it pretty well, although there were a few times we had to watch people to learn how some things were done. We also walked through the local mall, which is much nicer than the one in Kearney. There's a cinema there, I'm sure we'll see a movie or two at some point. Then later we wandered about the city in search of a resturant and found a nice Italian place in the square.

Today we had our first Czech lesson, and let me tell you, this language has got some weird pronunciations! Hopefully we won't butcher it too badly while we learn it. Later we'll be touring the city a bit, getting familiar. Also, something I noticed just today but thought was interesting.. I've seen 3 old ladies today who had dyed their hair. Now normally, one would think, oh, some natural color right? Wrong! 1 had light blue and the other 2 light pink. And they were like 80! Weird.

OK, well I guess that's all for now, just wanted to say hello and tell you about my first few days in the Czech Republic! I have my mailing address here but it's up in my room where I am not, so I'll get it to you next time! Let me know what's going on with you, although I don't know how long it'll be before I respond I'd love to hear from you!