I went to the Czech Republic !!!!!!

Hello Everyone,

Today I took a little day trip to the Czech republic. I went to Budweis, where Budweiser originated. I won´t go into any details, but I am sure that most of you know that there are 2 different beers with the same name, Budweiser, and there was a long legal debate over the whole thing. Anyways, this is where both beers originated.

The train ride was about 2-3 hours long, and the whole thing costed about 35 Euros round trip. I was happy just to get out of Austria for a day. I even got my passport stamped. I am sick of seeing the plain old EU stamp. And today I got a Czech stamp. Anyways, traveling there was like going back in time 50 years. After I got off the train I noticed the change. For starters, I had to change my money. Even though the Czech Republic joined the EU last year, you can bet it´ll take a while for changes to be seen.

The language was also completely foreign to me. I couldn´t understand one single word of Czech. I wouldn´t even know how to pronounce the words with all the accents. Luckily some people spoke German. 

The buildings. Don´t even get me started. Everything is old and falling apart. In Austria everything is clean, orderly and repainted. And with a trainride of 2 hours, buildings are falling apart. The CR used to be a communist country up until 13 years ago. It is so obvious.

Everything is so much cheaper there. I bought some really cute clothes.

Everything closes at around 7pm. Then after that I feel like the whole city shut down. No one was really on the streets after that. It was wierd. I was looking for a place to eat, but I gave up in the end. I couldn´t even understand the menus and I didn´t have the energy to a.) find a waiter that spoke english b.)listen to all the explanations. Plus I didn´t have enough money for a restaurant because I spent it all on clothes. So......I ended up going to McDonalds instead.

I didn´t see much. But I did see the Black Leather Tower (if I am correct with the name) I also visited a couple of cathedrals and did a lot of walking around. I took lots of pictures. As usual, the weather was crappy today. Very cloudy and cold. But I did the best I could with what I had.

I was happy to go back to Austria to cleanliness and orderliness. I had a nice afternoon. I really felt like I went back in time to the postwar era. Haha. The US is so modern and new and fast paced. This country is slower paced with a strong culture. I wouldn´t mind coming back for a vacation. I did a little daydreaming there and imagined myself staying for the summer. However, I couldn´t imagine living there longer. I think I would get bored and fed up.

I am thinking about joining the Peace Corps. There are 71 different countries to chose from and I am heavily thinking about going somewhere in Eastern Europe. And visiting the CR today makes me consider it even more.

My mother´s side is all in Austria (close to the Eastern Block). And my great grandparents on my dad´s side were Russians (in the Eastern block). I feel like it is part of family history one way or another. I don´t know what I will do. It´s all up in the air.

Ciao.