Czech Republic experiences

Exchange in April

2008-04-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

I'm doing great lately, and I have been taking alot of pictures so I have some more of my town random buildings and the such. here is that link below

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010843&l=81941&id=1447620606

Allright so whats new with me? Well I just moved to my 3rd host family this weekend, and it's a single mom right now named Elen. Her daughter is in the US in California for exchange and comes back in about a month. Speaking of which I leave on June 10th.. it's creeping up on me like crazy i have 60 days tomorrow 2 full months left ahead of me. So I have to get on it, as in do everything I wanted to do here.

So I had a kind of random Friday night this last weekend, to say the least. Jeff, Thomas, David (2nd host bro) and myself were all waiting at the train station to go to Ostrava. It is 20 km north of FM and it's 3rd largest city. Anyway there was 2 homeless guys there and they were both causing trouble with the taxi drivers inside the train station for whatever reason. After getting escorted out by the taxi drivers a couple times, one came on to the train platform where we were waiting for our train.
Now, this homeless guy has a name and that name is FRANTA!.. sounds like fanta but with an R. and after him telling David that he wants us to vote for him in the next Czech election which he wants to run for president of CZ in. haha The funny part to that is he didn't know that Vaclav Klaus was re-elected this year already and he thought we were saying Santa Claus..they sound kinda different ;)
Then our train came and Franta decided to go with us to Ostrava, we proceeded to videoing our conversation with him for about 10 mins. getting pictures and it was funny. He also started touching Jeff's hands saying they were to cold and then he kissed Thomas and Jeff both in the ears..that was awkward. Then at the end we gave him our 2 liter of pop because he wanted it and we went to meet up with our friends. (the end of that story)

Today I went to Elen's work (host mother) she's a surgeon at the hostpital and I got a little kind of tour it was cool. I also started talking to all of her work friends/colleages they asked me how I like Czech food and things like that. Elen is really cool I like her alot, she's currently remodeling her house and it's kinda crazy but it doesnt really bother me. Also she speaks English but not very much and so 100% talking to her is in Czech which is really good for me. It is my first host family to do this with so im excited. It's difficult and I make her laugh alot but she does that normally. Also on Sunday were going to Bald Mt. which is the 2nd highest peak in the CZ..but its also really small haha. I climbed it with my first host father Tony, and it took like an hour at most I think but it was fun.

Tomorrow a friend on exchange in Prague is coming to FM to visit to Sunday so he will be here for four days. So that should be fun I will post what we do, and im guessing we will have alot of pictures as well.

Then on April 28-30 we have a Venice trip and Jeff, Thomas and I are trying to stay later and travel because Jeff has family that lives in Italy but we shall see how that goes.
So thats all for now
-Harry

long time no blog..

2008-02-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

ski week, daily life, new semester, website, this last week, return date

First off I’m putting a link to a map of all the cities I’ve traveled to so far since being on exchange. It shows my favorite places and a big map/small map of the world. (got it from facebook)

second which is ski week, which was amazing by the way. I really love snowboarding, and it’s an independent sport/extreme so that’s probably why I liked it so much, plus I was pretty good for starting out here. I ended up boardsliding a box rail, if any of you know what that is, I will put pictures up from that. and this weekend I’m going to steal Jeff’s camera and take at least 100 pictures of Frydek-Mistek, he doesn’t know yet but he will soon :) Ski week went like this, ...let me start from the begginging. A friend on exchange who lives in another city about 5 hours came from his town to visit us guys in FM for the weekend before ski week. We went out to a school ball we got invited to (although we don’t go to that school), and that was Friday. On Saturday I think we went to the cafe and just chilled out for the day. Then on Sunday, it was my host brother David’s birthday and Jeff and Trevor (friend from Cali) came for that and there was more hanging out. Then Monday morning the starting of ski week us 3 guys (Thomas was in Switzerland) and one more guy on exchange from Canada went to the total opposite side of the country 10 km away from Germany. It's called Spicak and we were also in Zelezna Ruda. The train ride there took about 12 hours, we had a delay in every city and we missed our train in Prague because our train was late. Anyway it turned out to be a great week because it was my 3rd day snowboarding and I got into the advanced group...haha it wasn’t that hard because everyone was starting either skiing or snowboarding, and out of 14 kids 5 were in the advanced group which was cool. I was in the group with Jeff, Nate, Trevor, Julie and myself. We all ended up being snowboarders and really hitting the snow park hard. I’m the only one from the group that didn’t get hurt to badly, except for when I was doing a 50-50 to a frontside boardslide on a box rail and slipped out on the boardslide and smacked my face on the rail...except for that which didn’t hurt that much except for me biting my lip I was the least hurt from the advanced group. :) haha.. Jeff kind of had a minor concussion, Trevor fell off a jump and couldn’t walk for a day, Nate messed up his knee and could kind of walk better than Trevor, and Julie I don’t remember but she hurt more than me.!? lol..

As for my new semester of school, I’m no longer taking typing class or a second German class. But I do have Russian now, and more English classes. I actually like Russian more than German because it’s a lot like Czech. the only problem is azbuka but that’s fun to read after you get it basically..unless your teacher writes it in cursive on the board, you read it in print in the book, and your writing yourself is chicken scratch..and did I mention that I’m being taught it in Czech? but that’s ok the teacher is also my Czech teacher at school so whenever I get a bad case of...what?/I don’t understand this she just translates...which seems to happen often.

Daily life is going pretty well, not much to tell there other than the fact that not much has changed. Except for my month long no school, that’s not fun not having it but I’m over it, I had to much free time anyway. I’m still mainly going to cafes, or what us guys have started doing is going to Jeff's flat and watching episodes of scrubs, lol yea its fun and sometimes we practice Czech we made up some flash card games which makes it fun to learn... yay! ..haha :) but all in all I’m mostly just enjoying what I can here, and experiencing as much as I can.

Stating with last Thursday I’ve had a great jam packed week. David (host bro) Jeff, on of David's friends and myself went to Ostrava to go see a thaiboxing tournament. It was really cool, I’m not much of a boxing guy myself, but it was cool to bet fake money on whose going to beat up who for 10 minutes each.
Then on Friday I had my schools ball, and that was a lot of fun. I don’t see kids from my school out and about much but when I do see them at school parties or wherever I do seem them I always have a lot of cau's or ahoj's the next few days at school. (hi's hey's)

Saturday was a good day also, it was a lot of relaxing but it was fun. Jeff and I didn't do much but hang out and watch more scrubs, and go to the cafe but thats it.

I don't remember doing anything to interesting Sunday, and Monday but I'm pretty sure it was fun. Tuesday I had my Rotary presentation for my club, Jeff and Thomas also had there presentations. It was in Czech and I kinda got everything caught in my throat so it didn't turn out for the best. But it's okay I'm studying Czech more now and that will help me out a lot (yes i know thats an obvious answer)

Wednesday which was tonight, Mark who is living in Ostrava (Canadian) came to FM to get some money from Jeff so we went to the cafe, and hung out for a while. Except for missing skype with my mom its been great week. : `

And finally for now, I'm trying to set my return date for June 9th.

-Harry

Vail, CO, USA

Frydek-Mistek, Czech Republic

Avignon, France

Marseille, France

Washington DC, DC, USA

Tulsa, OK, USA

Prague, Czech Republic

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been a while heres an update

2008-01-17T08:19:00.000-08:00

alrighty then, here we go

ive gone snowboarding once more since my last time, wow...sorry christopher i know you were only 3 years old but i didnt mean to sideswipe you... :) yea i hit a jump to it was crazy...haha

The only sad thing that happened when i went to visit Prague and Třebíč (can you say that?) was that 2 of my good firends here had to go back to Australia. there school years are from jan. - jan so thats how they exchange..it sucks because i loved those guys and they are alot of fun..

Ive got a ski week coming up where i will be snowboarding at and thats at the end of jan-start of feb so that should be fun.. not everyone is going though because it is expensive but enough of the exchange students are going for it to be alot of fun.

The 24th will mark me being gone for 5 months, and if thats not hard enough to believe its harder to believe for me that my exchange is half over! seriously where does all the time go? but lets not get me started on the concept of time im not really sure it exists.

I have just been doing average day to day things here, i dont have school this month because my school has exams all of jan. so its really nice to be out of that thing..except for my english test im studying for on czech history for tomorrow..which is kinda lame.

basically ive just been chilling out in cafe's or at my house or jeffs flat... and facebook can always kill some boredom (not that im bored here by any means). haha A friend of ours is coming up for the weekend next weekend so im looking forward to that, should be fun.

Im not playing bass as much as i should be, but i just hate not having an amplifier..kinda blows but whatevs maybe i can just suck it up and keep practicing because god knows i need it.

Nothing really else to report, nothing out of the ordinary going on here, just living in the CR an enjoying every minute of it :) im basically just at a slow point right now without school and ive ngot really no extra curricular activities so im just relaxing...

harry

ps ive got idea why but spell check is like "i hate you" so thats not working out right now

tak cau

Snowboarding!

2007-12-30T11:47:00.001-08:00

ok soooo today i went to a nearby village to ski, and it was super busy because of the christmas holidays, lots of people.(20 mins 1 line for ski lift) Jeff snowboards and i have always skied right? ...well today i rented a snowboard ((it was just jeff and i today to ski) i borrowed skis from my host nephew) and learned how to snowboard... what can i say IT WAS SO FUN! haha but seriously im not gonna lie.. im not goign to go back to skiing much now. ps. i need to buy gloves, and snowpants. So jeff was really surprised at how fast i picked up snowboarding because he said that after 5 runs, which was all i boarded today.. that he was really impressed i picked it up so fast. im guessing that after skateboarding for so long, and skiing for a while it would come naturally but geez on my last run down the moantain..if you can call it that (nothing compared to colorado) i only fell 4 times! do you understand what that means? can you comprehend this monstrosity? i think im in love! haha but seriously like i hit 2 jumps today, and did a really crappy 180 also. on both jumps i landed it ok enough and then i fell over a little bit after out of surprise that i landed it...now of course i got like 2 feet of air? maybe 1? but still i was so surprised and its so much fun! jeff and i are goign to get season tickets somewhere but we dont know where yet...and im really excited for ski week because jeff and i are going to pwn! (see WoW for the def. of pwn) : ) oh but on my third run down oh man...i might have run into 2 people..within 2 minutes. now the first time was not entirely my fault i was going kinda fast but a skier came by right out of nowhere and i ran into her..jeff was watching and he said she skied away on one ski for a second and then fell over..i felt bad taht time but it gets worse! :( haha but she was fine she got up and skied away (and i said sorry in czech of course) now the second time it happened which was right after this almost i was heading towards this old couple just chilling right next to some mogles right?? and i hit one behind them and of course jeff saw this also he quote said "harry you helicopter chopped that grandma in the boob and made her fall over" end quote..haha my board was above my head and i totally bailed hard that time but after saying sorry again in czech and her husband just amazed at what he had witnessed she got up and was fine..luckily! i know i know...i need to be careful more next time and i will. lesson learned.. dont go snowboarding when its so busy..so i think were going back thursday? or whenever rotary pays us next which is soon. :) and thats my story of snowboarding.

Christmas Holidays!

2007-12-25T04:16:00.000-08:00

Christmas here is much better than i could have expected! :) On the 23 my host parents family started showing up, and there are 5 extra people here right now. Later tonight there will be another 4 here, and with so many people its hard not to just enjoy a Czech Christmas and not be as homesick as i expected.

I went to a rock concert/show on the 23rd it was a Slovak band named Horkže Slyže haha try to pronounce that! :) The next morning was all about some sweet bread and not eating much so that if you save your appetite for the night supper you get to see the Golden Pig (zlaty prase). Basically you eat soup for lunch, bread for breakfast and if you are good and don't cheat by eating to much food you see the Golden Pig which is part of tradition...don't ask how it started i have no idea. :)

Also those of you that know me wouldn't think me to be much of a sports person, or at least i don't consider myself to be much of one, but since being here i have played tennis which is a lot of fun. Yesterday though i played hockey and oh man, that sport is fun if its for fun..haha it was 2v3 and of course the 2 people one, my host dad and his son versus me and his 2 grandsons..i mean it was like this
15yr + 18yr +20yr vs. 37yr + 67yr (last 2 ages are guesses) and they won! haha :)
Yes hockey is a lot of fun, oh and i chopped firewood with Martin for the Xmas fire, that's always fun who doesn't like to handle and axe.
We had carp and potato salad for our Xmas dinner. Czechs always eat these 2 food it is very traditional, yes no turkey, but this stuff was still really good :) Also they open presents on Christmas Eve, I'm not use to that but i didn't mind, haha why would i?

I hope everyone else is having a great Christmas as well, and that you also have a great new year!

In half an hour I'm going to be playing hockey again, and then i will skype with mom and dad, what could be better? Nothing, i am 100% enjoying this experience and it is so worth it.

love you all
Harry

Mixture of all..

2007-11-19T09:57:00.000-08:00

good days/bad days,food,money,language,bob evans,snow,stoun,ice skating

So today I had quite a good day, not any real reason I did not do anything special it was just a good average day. Lately I have been a little bit down, missing home a lot and wishing that they had thanksgiving over here which for whatever reason they don't! haha Yes, I understand it's an American thing but come on who doesn't like to feast?? Czechs I guess.. Anyway back to the reason I had a good day, woke up semi-late like usual, and met Jeff at the train station. There we chilled for about 25 mins and did nothing but talk. School did not start today until 8:50 because I don't have first class so it was nice. I went to computer class, played random games online checked facebook of course. Then I had English, German, and Gym class.. it was the first gym class I have been to because for whatever reason we just never went.. which we found out is quite common with many of the students. It was a lot of fun though and we will now go to all the rest of them for the year. haha.. So nothing special I was just in a good mood for the day and it was pretty outside with all the snow we have over here.

It snowed for about 3-4 days on and off, no more than 5 inches i would guess that might be pushing it, but enough to make things pretty. Also the temperature over here is kinda cold..-3 C -3 C..is what it has been the last week. brr is right! haha David told me it was around 70 F still in Oklahoma thats so crazy, im just enduring cold weather here and back in OK its just nice and not chilly at all. This winter is going to be cold over here because it started early and Tony said that they usually do not get snow this early.

Wow, Czech.. you are all lucky your not having to learn this to survive! No joke! haha I have been told by around 4-5 people that czech is one of the hardest languages in the world. Some said only Japanese is harder, some said Finnish was harder, and one said Czech was the hardest. I don't believe it is the hardest to learn but I would guess top 5. Let me give you an example.
Thursday in cz = čtvrtek and the c is a ch sound in English
or the word surprise in cz = překvapení and the r has a j/z sound added to it! so difficult!
A funny thing though about Czech is that if they are hungry they would say this.
Mam hlad = i have hunger mam = i have hlad = hunger ....but its funny because if they are frightened they would say i have fear, etc.

Tony took me to the hockey arena yesterday to go skating for a while. Yea i'm not gonna lie i'm not that good, but it was fun none the less, something different.

On a totally different note than skating, but on the same note as different. DO NOT say you like some type of food if you think it is only decent, because it will be cooked for you again! haha I learned this with sourkrout oh man! That stuff is so sour tasting its just like oh man put me out of my misery haha not that bad but close..

On the weekends I usually go to the diskotek or Stoun which is a an old bomb shelter where there is live music. Well if you can call rap/hip hop music, although they had a good ska band a couple weeks ago there. It's all in Czech of course but fun anyway. Thats usually Fridary or Saturday, and on the rest of the weekend I just relax, take naps, eat good food, read which I'm doing alot of and so on.

Also, if you know Bob Evans keep him in your good wishes for he is very ill. I'm thiking of you Bob and don't worry about me I'm not going to the dark side...ever! :)

Love
-Harry

I'm finally writing once again, after many years.

2007-11-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

I am currently uploading pictures, listening to a new band I found, and wishing I had been a genius before Jeff. Let me explain that sentence. Jeff told me to unplug the internet for my host family's computer and to put it in my laptop. (that way i could upload pictures at home..not school) As for the cd I heard half of one of the songs of it at a music store and it turned out to be a great album, bands name is Swell Season, or it might be the album name not sure.

Ok so I'm here in the Czech Republic where they don't celebrate Halloween, but don't worry I survived it. There was a Halloween party in a town in the most south east corner of the Czech..I am living in the opposite side of the country. Thomas Jeff and I left FM (frydek-mistek) at 7:00 and got to Jindrichruv Hradec at 12:30 that town is halfway to Cesky Krumlov which is where the party was at. We spent Friday night in JH, with a couple rotex and other exchange students. We ended up getting costumes for ourselves there and, that night we went to the diskoteka, which is very popular over here. Saturday we woke up early again and got to Cesky Krumlov at 2:00. If anyone has seen the movie Hostel this is where that movie is filmed. In the movie they go to Bratislava but its really CK..don't watch the movie unless you like gore/horror films...i have yet to watch it. Anyway we got to see a torture museum which actually use to be a dungeon that they tortured people in...creepy. there was also a ton of old buildings that have been there a few hundred years which is always cool. As for traveling back to FM...wow what a long day of traveling ...for 10 and a half hours, by bus and train, and to many layovers to count.

and if you were wondering I was a girl for Halloween, I borrowed a cute dress and shawl...I remained straight throughout this process on account of not wearing makeup or shaving anything. I did wear a headband..but i do that on regular days so it was not a big deal.

SCHOOL...what can I say other than I am learning very little in school, except for Czech of course. Seriously though this is an average day for me.

Wake up between 7-8 and wish I was still sleeping, eat, get ready/hygiene thing. 20-30 minute walk to school depending on how tired/lazy I'm being that day. Some days school start at 9 or even 10 on Tue. I have between 4-8 hours of school everyday..and Wed. is the best because there is 4 hours of school. Basically we have a crazy schedule. All the students are 19-23 so, and because its like a trade school jr. college everyone commutes into school. So the majority of our classmates live in villages like at least 20 km away from FM which is not very good for us, because it's harder to make friends that way.

Last week my Rotary club had a bowling competition between Ostrava which is a large city 20 km away from FM. Our Rotary club won by about 2 pins and I thought it was funny how some of the old guys bowled. It's to complicated to explain when writing it..but if you remind me whenever you see me next..(never) and I remember I will tell you. :) The funny thing about Czech bowling is that the pins are attached on the tops with cords. So they still fall over and everything but then it pulls them up and puts them back down...so I think it is easier to knock them down because they are not as heavy, also they spin around a lot and hit the pins next to each other and knock those down as well. haha I think its hilarious.

Then not even a week later one of classes I'm in at school had a competition with another class I'm in for a school party type thing..in bowling. No one really knows how to bowl so it's more fun because I'm not the best by far.

Oh and it started snowing here like crazy! wow, 3 days in a row it has snowed, and I still don't have a winter jacket. Snowing in Europe means that it is below 0 Celsius which means it's cold!!

So that is all for now, the Internet at my house is slow for uploading pictures so there is only like 10 more up so far and I've written this whole blog and done other random things..lame

love you all
Harry

France pics, im not done loading them all

2007-11-06T06:02:00.001-08:00

http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc187/harryjindra/

Everything, and more.

2007-10-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

The France trip was a lot of fun, 33 Czech students and myself. It was an 18 hour bus ride, and it was not the most fun ever..but the students were singing songs and one brought his guitar. Over all the trip was very enjoyable, I found most French people to be rude to me, but maybe because i was a tourist and didn't speak French that was the problem.

I had two favorite spots out of all the ones i went to in France. One was the Pont Du Gard, it is part of an ancient Roman aqueduct. I studied them in Latin class and it was really interesting to be able to walk the whole thing. ...if i ever post pictures which i plan to this week you will see me on it... I also loved the city Avignon, we walked around the town and it was really cool. There is a palace there that the pope ruled from for like 150 years, we did not get to go inside it but it was really huge and interesting. We went swimming in the ocean about 3 times, most of the cities we visited were on the ocean and it was really pretty.

I went to Třebíč this last weekend to meet up with 11 other exchange students and to see another Czech town. Jeff and I left from Ostrava at 8 thirty in the morning, and we had to switch trains in Brno, we are lucky we are not still lost. Actually we didn't get lost at all, I surprised...I have mentioned on this blog before how much we get lost. haha I got to see another castle that was not in Třebíč but about 20 minute drive away into the country side. I stayed with 5 other people at one girls host family's house, 3 others stayed at another guy's house...and 2 lived in the town so they went back to there houses at night. But we still had a lot of fun, staying up late and hanging out..and really good food that the host family made us!

Anyone that reads this blog living in the US or somewhere not in the Czech, please send me your address, I want to send out postcards. I got quite a few in France and i also have quite a few in the from Czech Republic.

I am doing well, but I'm starting to miss my parents, hopefully I wont have to much homesickness. School is going well, and the language is picking up somewhat. I talk to my host mom in broken Czech and English..and a lot of times I don't know what words she say mean, but I understand. (kinda odd) anyhow I'm doing great.

I shall post soon again.
harry

.... :( ...

2007-10-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

i made a blog of france, and it was destroyed!!! I'm not sure how...but it got lost... I don't understand why.. it is gone forever..and it was a finished product...just as long as my last blog.!!!! There is no way i can rewrite all of that!

I will make you a deal, tomorrow i upload pictures of my host family/house/france trip...and you don't ask me to write a blog about France. BUT if you would like to know anything about france e-mail me...

fupes-a-fop@hotmail.com
or search me on facebook harry duff
or myspace me www.myspace.com/tulsaparkour
sorry!

Czech life and loving it!

2007-10-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

so i don't forget what to write about...its abuzz in my head! clash, lost 3 times in a week, food tonight, school, France trip coming up, prices, hockey game, tennis, Lisa Hora, pictures...sometime soon, layout of FM, (brainstorm ended)

Starting from the top, I have gotten lost 3 times in the past week. (quite a big accomplishment if I do say so myself)
First time was with Thomas and Jeff we were walking back from school and we had planned on stopping by my house. I live in Stare Mesto which is a 20 minute walk from school...anyway I basically forgot to turn right on the main street in town and we ended up backtracking for as much time as it would have taken to just go home if I had not missed the turn.
Second time, us 3 again and we were in Frydek square which is a 5 min. walk from school. We were going to the bus stop by school and noticed the bus that had just pulled up was our bus, so being the smart teenagers we are we ran for the bus. Once we barely made it on before it was moving we realized it wasn't the normal kind of bus, there was no standing area just seats. It was the wrong bus to say the least! We ended up in the bad part of town where all the Gypsies live, (not a good thing)but we only ended up in that area because the bus driver randomly yelled at us to get off the bus at a random stop. I think it was because we were the last ones one the bus but still I did'nt want to get off! After that we walked by some really sketchy people, talked to an old guy that didn't speak a lick of English, got eyed down by some creepers, and almost not noticing the train coming by...we found a taxi agency that kindly took our money and got us to Mistek square where we had been going for all along..to bad we had gone the opposite way to start. haha
Third and luckily last, there was tonight! Thomas luckily didn't include himself on us getting lost this time because he wasn't in the mood to go to the gym and work out with Jeff and I. So after working out , and being quite tired Jeff and I left the gym and headed for the train station. We went under a tunnel which goes under the highway street and turned right instead of left (not going to listen to Jeff often again...although I'm just at bad with directions). After coming out of the tunnel and saying "I'm pretty sure I have seen that place, I know where we are" about, hmm 20 times each oh and an hour and a half....we ended up back where we had meant to go all along. Sadly the train station we had aimed for in the start is only about a 10 minute walk from where we were, so as you can tell we really got lost that time. :)
The Clash tied in there because i had the song lost in the supermarket stuck in my head most of the time...odd

After i got home tonight, and being quite hungry from working out and wandering around lost I got some really good food. Milada gave me a tomato which she had sliced up and about a quarter of a yellow pepper. Tony reheated (I missed dinner I was lost) 4 fried caulliflower and some potato wedges...good stuff. This is not a normal dinner for Czech it is most commonly cold, I usually eat Czech sandwiches. These are slices of bread with butter/ a cream cheese thing with deli meat, peppers, tomatos, and other random healthy stuff. (this is also eaten for breakfest alot)

School is going quite well. Here's my basic schedule. English 12 times a week, German 8 times a week, sports rules once, gym class twice, Czech class twice, tech/computer learning 4 times, and last but definetly not least basic typing 4 times a week. Yes i'm attempting to learn German, which is quite hard when it's taught in Czech! So yes classes are easy but then again it's a jr. college and kind of a trade school for tourism at the same time. (luckily im not in those classes)

So i'm going to France, what a lucky kid I am.! i'm excited! I leave this Thursday and get back the following Friday so..8 days 6 in France for sure. Here is the plan for the trip.
4th oct. travel there
5th oct. lyonu
6th oct. avignon
7th oct. arles / camargue
8th oct. marseille
9th oct. haute provence / velkeho kanonu verdon (that second part is czech ..(im 90%sure of it))
10th oct. st. tropez / antibes
11th oct. nice a cannes/ monaco
12th oct. go back to czech aww..

So I do understand that this country's economy just came out of communism, and that it is getting better every year, enough so to switch to the € (euro) in about 2013. BUT IT'S SO CHEAP! Ok so today I got a chocalate craving...(i'm in love with the stuff) so I went into this supermarket by school and got crazy. I bought 4 Orion chocalte bars, two 20 ounce bottles of coke and, 2 packs of orbit gum... and the price 120 crowns/6 bucks. Ok maybe that wasnt the best example, but these chocalate bars are huge! How about this, lunch unless its the fanciest restauraunt you can find you wont spend more than 7 dollars usually 3-5. To ride the city bus 7 crowns/ 35 cents. Most shopkeepers will not break a 1000 crown bill, and if they do you get a really pissed off clerk with a death glare from hell. Another example is our school trip was 350 crowns/ 17 dollars. It was a night stay at a hotel and like 4 meals, I love this country.
20 crowns equal 1 dollar and 1000 crowns =50 dollar

This last weekend was a blast. It was laziness combined with dancing, sports, and hiking. Friday night Jeff, Thomas, Jeff's host bro David, and myself with 5 random girls we know through David went to a diskoteka. It was fun we danced to some really random songs ,most of them have already been dubbed as old in the US haha but that made it better. Saturday morning I went with Tony (host dad) and climbed the second highest mt. in the Czech. It's called Lisa Hora which means Bald Moantain. It's somethign like 1300 meters or something more i don't really remember. On Sunday I played Tennis with Tony (first time ever) I mean I guess you could say we played tennis, I mean basically we just hit some balls back and forth. I'm going to stick to Le Parkour (thanks Mike for showing me that) it's more for me. We then went to a hockey game that night also. It was between česky budjevice and Vitkovice, it was a good match, or so I think....I know nothing of sports but it was entertaining nonetheless. :)

Ok is FM short for Frydek-Mistek (town I stay in). Frydek and Mistek use to be two different towns and after one of the world wars they had grown large enough and close enough to come together and form one town. ...actually I don't know at all when they joined together I might have just made up when that happened... Anyway they are separted by the river Ostravice and each one has it's own town sqaure. About 70,000 people live here and i'm starting to learn my way around (starting...im not getting lost quite as much).

thats all for now... I love you all!

-Harry

Language camp, and first day of school

2007-09-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

Alright then, been a while since i have posted but i was at my language camp so i had an excuse. Wow so much happened at language camp it was so so so much fun! For 2 weeks we had 18 of the 24 inbound students get together and attempt to learn the basics of the hardest language with the Latin alphabet. It helped a lot because i now can pick out words when people are speaking and i learned all the basic stuff...foods,numbers,drinks,random vocab,verbs,and alot more. We had 2 teachers Tomaš and Mila and they were alot of fun, we had about 3-4 hours of lessons a day and the rest of it was activities. We played games outside,went swimming twice, went to the castle in Jindrichruv Hradec about 4 times. (JH literally translates to Henry's castle, so my name in Czech is Jindra) Everyone got really close and i like our group alot i can tell we are going to have alot of fun.

The breakdown of the 18 of us so far goes this way. 11 girls 7 guys, 3 canadians , 2 aussies, i mexican, and the rest are from the US..so basicaly north america and australia but its really cool we all speak english and...soon enough czech.

If you want to know where i have been so far in the Czech here is a list of towns..

Frydek-Mistek (hometown)

Opava (host parents family lives there)

Jindrichruv Hradec (language camp location)

Tabor (during camp we went there for a day)

Lisa Hora (translates to bald mountain...that's where my school trip was at)

Ostrava (bought my bass there and flew into there)

I feel like my first month has gone by so much slower,or that it was so much longer (hope that made sense). I just hit the one month mark about last Saturday and its crazy to think i have been away from home that long.

here's a little bit of Czech i learned,... don't judge me on it this language is impossible

čau hey/hi

jak se maš? how are you

mloovit anglicky? do you speak english?

nero zumim! i dont understand

mam hlad. i am hungry

prosim, tři colu , dekuju please/excuse me, 3 cokes , thankyou

simple stuff i use everyday :)

Alright and as for my first day of school, that was today! I have 12 english classes a week, 8 german classes , 7 technical/ typing classes and 2 czech ones...oh and a few other gym classes it should be fun. The hard part/ fun part is to learn german in czech , so it shall be an experience today it was my favorite class. Sadly i understood more german in those 2 hours of class than i have since i lived in the czech of understanding czech. (that didnt make sense...to bad)

love you all

harry/jindra

read me!!

2007-09-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

Well this is my last post for a while, tommorow morning Jeff''s host father will pick myself up and the other exchange student thomas for our language camp. It lasts 2 weeks and is located in Jindřichův Hradec (don't worry its hard for me to pronounce also), it's in south Bohemia.

Ok food, wow its gotten better if possible! Naps oh my gosh they are my best friend as well, but first food. My host father was in China for 10 days and he got back yesterday, and since he got back my host mom it seems to me at least has been making really good food for him and us (martin was still here). We got steak it was tough but still really juicy good, and two days in a row i got french fries for lunch! (my fav. american food) The milk here is quite different, Martin said that you can buy some milk and if you don't drink it within 3 days it goes bad..no preservatives i guess. Other milk has a longer shelf life but it is still quite hard to drink plain, i have to drink it with food in mouth already because of the sour taste. My family has even gotten the higher percentage of grease in the milk ,and its still like wow...no one at home would say this milk is fresh...but it is so i drink it. :)

Next naps, like i said they are really good. It's been raining here like for 3 days straight so i have nothing to do really, i mean i do but naps...way better! Yesterday i woke up at about 11 o clock.. had breakfast, had a nap woke up maybe played some guitar or bass, had lunch..got on facebook or myspace e-mail,then had another nap woke up...and time for dinner...not a waste of a day at all! :) Also i had a nap today after lunch, this weather is perfect for them, but if i was to keep it up i would get fat real soon.

I mentioned i played guitar or bass, no i didn't bring them from home. My host dad's brother i think his name is Pavel loaned me his daughters guitar...haha its an old classical acoustic but i like it. On it is a sticker that says Come Back To Me (translation) its in the shape of a heart its funny. For the bass i bought an electric (because acoustic basses do not exist in this country or so it seems!) 4 string, it's pretty good it's an apollo.

Ahh tea, they drink that here like we drink pop in the US or whatever your favorite drink is, in the CZ its Chai Tea. I'm getting used to it, but at first i refused it (after trying it first of course). I have drank it like the last couple nights im starting to like it...its kinda odd because in the US i basically hated tea.

not much else to say for now, i don't think i will be able to post while in language camp so this is it for a bit.

just to keep you all in the loop if you don't know.
Martin -host parents grandson
Tony -host dad
Milada -host mom
Jeff -Canadian exchange student
Thomas -exchange student from Tennesee

-Harry

school / school field trip

2007-09-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Ok. Then. !. yea i dunno what that is ignore it...plus the last blog before i had a problem with the text turning into hindi text after i typed it...dont ask...its for the best you dont ask . .. ...!

Anyway back to the name of this post school...i at first thought i would be going to a High school. Well i was wrong but i am going to school of course that is part of the program but in the czech republic i am attending a trade school by the name of Goodwill Vos. It was started by an american who lives in the Czech Republic and it has about 400 students. The students have all finished highschool already so they are ages 19-21... big difference for me and the 2 other exchange students attending here because... well the other 2 guys are age 16 one is from Canada his name is Jeff and the other is from Tennesee and his name is Thomas. We are getting along really well. I can tell we will have a good year.

For something like a freshman orientation for all the new students to the school this year, including us exchangees. It was only for a day and a half, but it kinda seemed like longer just because everyone asked us the same questions...
"something in czech we did not understand"
and i would respond with "nero zumim" (i dont understand in CZ) "jsem američan" (i am american)
but other than speaking to people who either know english well enough to have a conversation, or others who you have to press to get anything out of,it was a good way to meet the students.
We were suppose to climb some moantain around 1300 meters...but it rained so much that after walking for 20 minutes the teachers turned us around and we went back to the hotel we were staying to just do random nothingness.

एस एस फ गे अवेह्जुयी इप `

2007-09-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

वास्द्ग्फ़ अस्द्फ अस्द्फ अस्द्फ अस्द्फ अस्द्फ अस्द्फ अस्द्रे४व्त् व्त्द्फ़्व्क्ष्क्व्ग् /[पोइओ; s

this week

2007-08-31T09:17:00.000-07:00

As most of you all know the Czech Republic is kinda small, it's smaller than the US of course but that's a given. It is six hours from one end to the other east to west and north to south the longest possible is 3 hours. Other things that you might find small are streets,cars,everything but appetites at lunch time. They have their main meal of the day at lunch instead of at dinner. Ok driving... there are no lines i would say unless your at a major city street the roads have no lines so its like a race track not really but with the road being a couple feet smaller it just feels like it. It is hard to describe i will put pictures up soon enough to show you.

Martin[host parents grandson] has taken me under his wing for the week before school :] , he went to canada on exchange and got back 2 years ago he speaks english very very very well. We went to a cafe and saw some jazz music which was very enjoyable, he was surprised i knew any of the names of the songs, when we walked in Satin Doll was on it was funny. We just listened to music and a few of his friends came and they spoke english so i could talk to them, i am learning CZ slowly. The next day we woke up early and went by train out of Opava to Siroka Niva. His friends were staying in a cottage that their parents owned and it was fun to meet more Czech people around my age. We played futbol, went fishing ,and went on a long walk around the area of the town.

thats all for now more later.

1234567890%ˇ'

FOOD!

2007-08-28T01:19:00.001-07:00

Alright i know that some of you might have been worried about what not with me maybe starving or something but thats not possible, not at all. My first lunch i had Tony tried to feed me like 6 mini sandwiches saying that a growing boy would eat those easily and that his grandsons did all the time i was just like....(wow im a pansy). I have mostly been eating breads with what they call butter but its as thick as cream cheese and really good... our butter in the US sucks no joke its not even edible but this stuff is amazing...anyway bread butter then some kind of sandwich meat and Milada (host mother) will put on either cucumbers or bell peppers and tomatoes random stuff i dont understand because it way more healthy than what i am use to eating. their staple foods here are meat and potatoes which makes me happy like some huge kind of beef with spices and herbs anyway its good...yea i dunno ill tell you more later
harry

na shledanou

contact me

2007-08-28T00:58:00.001-07:00

fupes-a-fop@hotmail.com
email me there or search me on facebook or myspace!

2007-08-27T01:08:00.000-07:00

ahoj! Jak se máš?Neumím moc česky.prominte! Mluvíte dobře česky? Ano. Kdy vlak přijede? dobrou noc!

Thats what i have been hearing everyday
Hello, how are you, my czech is not very good, excuse me, my czech is good,yes,when does the train leave,good night (translation)

I arrived saturday when it was 1 o clock here , Tulsa is 7 hours behind that time. My host dad's name is Antonin but he goes by Tony luckily and my Host mom's name is Milada (i think thats how you spell it). They are a retired couple and very nice. Saturday after i unpacked i got to have a nap before we went to the castle in Frydek Mistek which is walking distance from Stare Mesto (europeans walk everywhere), ps Frydek Mistek is where my host club is and it has about 70,000 people living there Stare Mesto has about 1,000 living in it, and Ostrava (if you were interested) has about 300,000...any way getting back to my nap we never went to the castle because when Tony came to wake me up he said i was sleeping like a baby and so i slept till about 1 the next day and i had a good sleep of around 20 hours :)

After eating breakfest sunday and taking a shower, we went to a renisiance type faire in Frydek Mistek (we walked) if you have been to one of these you know they can be very corny with all the men running around with replicated swords and armor and stuff but its even funnier when its all in a foriegn language..

well so far thats all i've got so enjoy and i will most likely update this profile with pictures and other things soon
-Harry

before i leave

2007-08-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

so its tuesday morning and i leave friday morning.. there is still so much that i need to do its not even funny and i feel like i might not ever find my camera. (this is a draft to see if i like this blog enough to use it for a year)