The weeks after my last post were basically filled with finishing my papers and studying for exams. I don’t think I listed the classes I took this semester… so I’ll tell you now!
- Czech Culture and the Olomouc Region
- Central European Culture and Society
- Ethnic and National Minorities of Central Europe
- Central Europe and European Integration
- Central European Political Systems
- Problems of the Post Soviet World
- History of Central Europe since 1945
So it really was quite a class load! I had an exam in all of them except the first two I listed, but had some paper or presentation for all of them. I was quite nervous for a few of my exams, but I think I ended up performing pretty well! And I think my papers, even though not the best I’ve ever written, were quite good too. Overall I am quite pleased with how much I was able to learn and retain about a region that I didn’t have any background knowledge in. A lot of my classmates were from Central Europe, or at least European, so they had some background knowledge of a lot of the topics we discussed. I was hearing most things for the first time, and I’m from across the Atlantic! So like I said, I learned a lot this semester and did quite well in my classes given where I come from.
I went to a couple really exciting and unique things here in Olomouc, though! Ambassador Norman Eisen, who is the ambassador from the United States to the Czech Republic, was at the university doing a sort of question answer session. It was really interesting! He seems like a really great guy and is very excited about making relations between the US and the Czech Republic even closer. He’s also excited to be the ambassador because for quite a while the US didn’t even have an ambassador to the country. People asked him really interesting questions, and I was surprised how interested they were in the US itself. He had a lot to say about the Obama administration because he was an important member of the transition team. But, when asked about former president George W. Bush and about negative attitudes toward him, he was very polite and only spoke about his good experiences with that administration. I was so excited I got to catch the presentation, and that it was in English! I was also very lucky one night and got to see one of my favorite singers perform! I was kind of bored working on my papers one morning and decided to look and see if any of my favorite European artists were performing anywhere I would be this summer. So I checked Marketa Irglova’s site, and surprise! She was to be in Olomouc that night! I hopped on Facebook and found out some of my friends were going, ran around the city trying to get a ticket, and ended up having a friend of mine give me his. I feel like it was fate seeing her in concert… Before I left for the Czech Republic I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to see Marketa performing in her home country?” And it happened! For those of you who don’t know her, she is in the movie “Once” with Glen Hansard. It’s a wonderful music-movie and definitely one of my favorites. Watch it if you haven’t! And look out for Marketa’s album in August… it’s going to be amazing!
Two weekends ago I was so excited have had the opportunity to go to Budapest, Hungary! One of my best friends lived there for a time, and was stopping there on her way home to Romania and asked a few of us if we would like to join her. I was thrilled because I thought I might have missed my chance to go to Budapest. We left Olomouc early Friday morning and took a train to Brno, and then took a bus to Budapest. We arrived around 2:00 and first learned how the public transportation works. Thank goodness we had a native speaker with us! Hungarian is a very difficult language… even though they say it is the closest language to Finnish, I didn’t understand anything! And, there really aren’t as many people who speak English, at least compared to other capital cities. They are also very serious about controlling the entrances to the metros and have sometimes eight people ready to check your tickets! So there was no chance to try to ride for free.
We first went to our hostel, and were very pleasantly surprised! It was close to one of the main train stations, and our friend’s friend works there. It was so adorable and homey – not like a typical dorm hostel at all! It was great because we were able to relax and cook together. After dropping our stuff off, we had some lunch and headed to the Danube! A little bit about Budapest – The city is actually comprised of two cities: Buda and Pest. Buda is much more green, and all of the buildings and real aspects of the city are in Pest. We first went to Pest so we could look at the Parliament from across the Danube… and it was breathtaking!
Looking anything along the Danube is really an amazing sight… we definitely spent a lot of time just looking at the city. We then walked around the Castle and saw the Mathias church, which also has an amazing view of the city. It was really great just walking around and enjoying the weather the first night.
That night we decided to stay in and cook in the hostel because we were all really exhausted from the trip and just how busy we had been with school lately, so it was really nice to relax.
The next day we had a busy day planned! We really saw a lot. We first headed to the House of Terror museum, which was in the former headquarters of the secret police in Hungary. The Nazi occupation of Hungary was really intense, and the highest numbers of people were deported in the shortest amount of time in Central Europe. Like the other countries in the region, they were very much under the control of Germany and Hitler, but when the Soviets took over there was a bit of celebration. This changed, however, with the coming of Stalin and the “evolving” of communism. Hungary had a really bloody revolution in 1956 when the people revolted against the government. They banded together and demanded for freedoms and a change in prime minister, and were the only country to achieve some sort of freedom on their own. However, the Soviet Union had too strong a desire to hold on to the countries it occupied and after only 5 days of freedom, Soviet tanks rolled into the city. Walking around the city today you can still see bullet holes in the buildings from the fighting that occurred. The museum was fantastic in telling the story of both the Nazi and Soviet occupation of Budapest and Hungary in general. It displayed what daily life for ordinary citizens, the secret police, and political prisoners was like. I was so thrilled with it because I had already learned so much about the revolution in my classes, so it was really exciting to be able to follow along so well with the exhibition. If you’re ever in Budapest, I really recommend that you go to this museum!
Next we walked around and saw the main sites: Heroes Square, the other castle, and Parliament. It’s all so beautiful, and you can kind of feel the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in some areas, but also still feel communism in others.
I put this picture here of the flag with a hole in it because it symbolizes the revolution because the people cut the communist symbol out of the Hungarian flag in protest. And the Parliament is a very impressive building, and it’s even more popular to see the inside. However, it’s somewhat of a challenge to get tickets and they only sell them the day of, so we opted out of doing that because there were other things we wanted to see before we left for Olomouc.
That night we decided to split up for a bit because Noemi needed to see some family and Elodie and I wanted to see the city by night. We went back to the castle across the Danube in Buda, and oh my goodness was it gorgeous.
We sat and looked at the city Buda for almost an hour, while enjoying the sounds of a fiddler and people dancing right near us.
It was so romantic… and we even got a quick spring rain that just added to the mood. While sitting there I really thought about how lucky I am to be seeing the things I have this semester. I am so thankful to have this opportunity – so here’s a big THANK YOU to everyone who’s helped me get here!!!
Sunday we had a few hours to see some last minute things before catching the bus back to Olomouc. We first headed to the Old Synagogue, which is the largest and oldest one running in the world, except for one in New York City. It was really beautiful, but there was a huge line to get inside and we unfortunately didn’t have time to wait. It was still nice seeing it and walking around the Jewish district a bit. We then headed to Gellert’s hill to see The Citadell and yet another amazing view of the Danube and the city.
It was quite the hike up the hill! We were exhausted, but the view really was worth it. We then met up with Noemi and had our last meal with her. It was sad to leave her in Budapest, but the goodbyes are just beginning. And I really feel like I will be back in Central Europe very soon, so it definitely isn’t goodbye forever!
Well, I think I will leave you with my trip to Budapest for now… this is quite a long post! I will tell about my time in Krakow and the last week with a lot of my friends here in a few days. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!
