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
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
.... :( ...
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!
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!
Monday, October 1, 2007
Czech life and loving it!
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
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
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