Poděbrady, in fact the whole of the Czech Republic, is
beautiful. When the plane was coming into land yesterday, I saw green fields,
separated by hedges, like they are back in the UK, and therefore was expecting
the architecture to be similar as well.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. Nearly all the buildings
are in that gorgeous European, almost Mediterranean style, with shuttered
houses in all shades of colour, with beautiful gold statues adorning some of
the walls. I think I could go on about how beautiful their architecture is for
a least half an hour! But I’ve got to go bed soon unless I want to be dead
tomorrow, so I’m going to have more on, and say my gushing for another post.
The food here is also really nice, despite what people have
told me. It helps considerably that the food here is so cheap. We’ve all been
given lunch and dinner vouchers which help with the cost, but even without
these you can get a lovely buffalo mozzarella and tomato salad for less than
£3, a pizza for less than £4 and pasta/burger and chips for less than £4 as
well!
Today itself has been a whirlwind. I had to get up at 6:10,
after being woken up by my room-mate at what felt like 1 a.m. so that the lady
in charge of the course could show us the restaurant where we have breakfast.
(My room-mate seems nice, she is Russian and speaks little English and even
littler Czech, so we speak Russian together – On the one hand this is amazing
practise, on the other hand I can see myself mixing up Czech and Russian even more
than I already do…) I bumped into Jones and S from Bristol, and together we
bumped into Russian Nick (who confusingly speaks French most of the time) and
two students from Sheffield, who are both really friendly and lovely.
After breakfast, we had to do a placement test, which
resulted in the Brizzle students being placed together in A2, two stages above
beginners. Given we’ve only been studying Czech for six months, I was
incredibly pleased with myself! Hopefully by the end of the course I’ll be
equivalent to be B1 level. (The levels go Beginners, A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2,
C2= fluency in the language). These levels are used by the EU to assess
someone’s language ability. They do have a fancier name than levels, but I’ve
forgotten it!
After having a very quick lunch in a nearby café, we got on
a coach to Prague. Inevitably after waking so early, most of us fell asleep.
Once we got to Prague, we went to the Charles University, who is the academic
“supporter” of our language course…I think. We listened to some speeches, all
basically saying have a lovely time on your course, and thanks for coming. Far
more interestingly, they were said in English, Czech and then Russian, meaning
I understood good chunks of the Czech and Russian, having already heard the
English “version”.
After the speeches, we wandered round the university and
then a small group of us went to a beautiful twenties inspired cubist café,
where we had afternoon tea. I had a delicious little Czech cake (the
translation the café gave – I can’t remember the Czech name!). After chatting
in the café for about an hour, we headed to the Karlův Moct, Prague’s famous,
amazingly long and beautiful bridge. Jones, S and I wandered along the bridge
(accidentally losing the others on the way) and back, enjoying the sunshine and
wandering how a nearby Danish marching band were coping in the heat in their
uniforms (No idea why they were there – but it was pretty cool).
Since we had lost Sheffield!Nick (who happens to be a girl,
to add to the confusion), who was the only one who knew her way around Prague
as well as the others, I grabbed a map from the nearest Tourist Info Booth – to
have my accent mistaken as French , a hundred times better than being
recognised as English!
On the coach back, S, Sheffield!Nick and I decided we were
going to try out some of the exercise classes held in the gym below our dorm.
So, in addition to my first Czech lessons tomorrow, I’ve also got Zumba in
Czech at quarter to six – Wish me luck!
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