1. Living as a local

Daily life for the locals here in Olomouc is very different from an American’s daily life. People are always walking everywhere, you do see some cars but I think majority of the people walk here. The cars that are driving, drive so fast. You definitely have to look four or five times before crossing the street, because it seems like the drivers don’t care. Trams are the common way around town. There are a lot of different routes, so you have to know which tram goes exactly where. One day our group was headed to class for the first time by ourselves and we took the wrong tram, so we had a nice little adventure through a park. We weren’t off track by too much though. Trams can get super packed, and they have limited seating. The only times someone would have to give their seat up would be for the elderly, a pregnant woman, or someone with a baby. Other than that, you kind of keep to yourself.

The currency is also very different here. They call it korunas, one koruna is worth $.03 US dollars. So the exchange rate here is really good. You can have a whole meal, food and drink, for only about $4. Groceries are another thing that are different here. If you want to use a cart, you have to pay for it, about 10 korunas, which is $.39, but when you’ve never had to pay for a shopping cart, it seems pointless to start now. You also have to pay for plastic shopping bags to bag your groceries. My roommate and I just decided to buy a recyclable bag to reuse. Globus is like our Wal-Mart. It has everything in it, and it is always a maze when I go in there. I can never remember where anything is at, and I can’t even read what the labels say. You either have to look at the pictures on the label or it’s a pick and choose game.

            My daily life in Olomouc consists of waking up, going to our favorite café, Café 87 for some coffee, and just walking around or finding something to do until class time, which is at 3 and goes until 7. We have two lectures a day with different speakers each time and a Czech language class. Then we are able to do whatever after class. Weekends here in Olomouc are very different. Most students studying here go home on the weekends. So weekdays are their time for fun.  Most shops are only open until noon and none are really open on Sundays.

            Food wise we mostly go to café or restaurants because we don’t have much of a kitchen here at our dorm. Our best option is ramen noodles in the microwave. They have a crepe stand right by the university, and they are the best things ever. Nutella crepes have been my favorite ones so far. We also found the best gyro stand, that's our typical late night food run. They have even memorized our orders... which may be a bad thing. When we go out to eat, it is not uncommon for people to not tip their server. Most servers don’t expect a tip, and if you do want to tip you usually just round up maybe 5 korunas. One thing I find odd is that you have to pay for ketchup. Each place is different on how much they want to charge, but it has never been free. They also don’t have ranch at all, so that makes me upset because I love ranch.

Holding the greatest food invention ever... nutella crepes!

            So far living as a local here hasn’t been bad. I haven’t had one bad experience, everyone around the university is super friendly and will help you if you have a question. The other day I asked a guy if he spoke English, and his response was, “Well yes of course.” (With a Czech accent) I felt dumb for even asking. This whole adventure seems to be flying by, I can’t believe I’ve already been here for a month. I cried when I got here, and I know I’ll when I leave.

Tomorrow a group of us head to London for the weekend!

Only 60 more days until I’m home sweet homeJ