Tag Archives: Charles University

Day 2 Czech Republic

So it is day 2 in the Czech Republic. We woke up early this morning to meek up with our colleague Martin (Who’s a professor at Charles University) and he walked us over to where Czech TV is based out of. At Czech TV we met up with another individual named Martin (This confused me at first). The Czech TV Martin gave us a very nice tour of the entire building and the studios they film in. What I learned from this visit is there are limited commercials and advertising on TV, they have a constant 24 hour news channel (no Jack Bauer wasn’t present), they still are coping with having ‘limited’ resources and everyone that works there needs to be able to speak at least 3 different languages.

 

After the Czech TV visit we went to meet up with the Charles University Martin and he gave us a tour of the University. What was astonishing to me was that the school was founded in the mid 1300’s, before our country was even discovered! Additionally with that comes the immense and impressive heritage of kings involved in the creation of the University. Additionally the architecture was VERY impressive. In some instances I was rendered speechless. Through the tour we also got to view the news studio and software the journalism majors utilize on a daily basis. One of the things I found interesting about that is the students are required to learn English because all the computer software is only in English.

 

After the tour, Martin walked with us through the old town square where we saw again the most impressive architecture with an immense heritage and we even learned about a clock that was built in the 1400’s and continues to run without any problems. After walking through town square we then proceeded to a local pub for food and drinks. There I learned for the first time what the Czech food was like (Usually a lot of dumplings are involved) and what the beer was like (Best Beer Ever!).


Location: Prague, Czech Republic

Wednesday: Czech Television & Charles University

On Wednesday morning we all slept in before beginning our day. Breakfast in the Czech Republic is very different from what a “typical American breakfast” might be, consisting of mostly meats, cheeses and breads to choose from. I thought everything was absolutely delicious, but found myself becoming hungrier for lunch much earlier in the day than I typically did at home. After breakfast, one of Elavsky’s friends whose name is Martin came to meet all of us and take us to Czech Television for a meeting with one of their employees. Martin is a professor of Charles’ University, one of the oldest and most esteemed universities in Prague. Martin took us on a hike through the rain to Czech Television, where were able to go on a tour of their studio and learn about the ways in which their television company differed from ours in the states. I was pretty amazed to see that almost everyone in the studio spoke English, an observation which would only be reaffirmed throughout all of our travels across the Czech Republic. After visiting Czech TV we stopped by a grocery store to find some quick lunch and purchase some snacks for our rooms. In the Czech Republic, you have to pay for plastic grocery bags!! After eating a quick lunch we met back up with Martin and he gave us a tour of Charles University. He is a media/film professor so we were able to see the university’s studios and even work with their film editing programs. We then went visiting Old Town Prague, and went to dinner there. I must admit that by the end of the day I was almost just as exhausted as the first night and was very pleased to crawl into bed.

Day 1 in the Czech Republic

Hey everyone,

The other day we finally arrived in the Czech Republic!!! We flew out of Newark and had a 6 hour layover in England. In England we were able to leave to terminal and take a tour of a castle near by. Being my first time in the country I found it very, very interesting. I enjoyed meeting all the nice people with their unique accents, looking at the awesome architecture and freaking out about the cars driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. What I took away from our quick stay in England is because I fully understood the language I was able to appreciate the culture more. So in essence our similarities allowed me to better view our differences.

Once we arrived in the Czech Republic I was immediately struck by the ‘communist’ architecture style, which I found very interesting. I also found that 90% of the vehicles are made by the Russian car company Skoda, which also intrigued me.

Today we woke up at 9:00am for a nice breakfast and planned out the day. At 1:00pm we walked over to the Czech Television Station, which is the equivalent to our ‘CNN’, and got a personalized tour of the entire station. What was very cool is we had an English speaking tour guide who works at the Foreign Desk portion of the TV Network and he was able to answer and understand all the questions we had. I honestly was completely blown away by the full access we had because we are ‘foreign strangers’. 

After wards we walked over to a Czech grocery store and bought food for lunch. It was very interesting how ‘cheap’ a lot of the food is when you have American money. What I have learned is the Czech people do not make a lot of money, hence a lot of their food is cheap. Also I was shocked that I had to purchase my grocery bags to carry my items out of the store. However it did teach me to not just throw those bags away when I got back to the bed and breakfast, but to save the bags for a possible future grocery store trip. I would recommend this concept to America because we would severely cut down on the amount of plastic we put in our landfills.

After changing into more comfortable clothes and making some lunch we set off to visit the center of Prague and the oldest university in central Europe, Charles University. Once again we got a personal tour of the school and its telecommunication studios. In this instance our tour guide could speak some English, but our Professor was able to act as a translator for this tour. After touring the school I walked away stunned that the school is older than our entire nations existence. The school was founded in 1347 and has had only minor architectural updates since. I also was intrigued the reason a lot of students learn English is because their editing software on the computers are in English so they are forced to learn the English language. After touring the school we walked around the corner and we were in the center of Prague. Once again I was blown away from the old style of the architecture and how beautiful the entire environment was.

Well Its time for bed, I need to get up early tomorrow to go visit parliament and the castle.  Until next time…

Cheers,
Drew


Location: Prague, Czech Republic