Falling in Love With Olomouc

"We do not remember our lives as one long video, but a series of pictures with memories."

The beautiful city of Olomouc

As I sit here in an attempt to wrap up the past few days, I keep thinking about this statement that is equally simple and true. These wise words were spoken by a man who was kind enough to tell us about Olomouc and give us a tour this week. It was truly incredible to hear about World War II and see the city through his eyes. I can only hope to have the amount of life experiences that he has had. I can't help but feel overwhelmed when I think about how incredible this trip has been so far. I wish I could watch it all again in one long video, but I guess small snapshots with various memories attached will have to do. 

Since I last updated this, we have started classes and have finally begun to get settled into our new lives here. Class has been going great. Our Czech language class is fairly easy, and we always find ways to make it fun. Our teacher Katherine, Katka for short, is very nice, and I think she gets a chuckle out of us silly Americans. On the other hand, our history class has been a little different than I was expecting. We've had several different professors come in and give lectures. I would be lying if I said that the material wasn't extremely dry-especially at night- but I'm trying to get as much out of it as possible. 

Other than classes, life here has consisted of exploring various restaurants, stores and new parts of town (there's surprisingly quite a bit here). I think we're all getting the hang of things, and our explorations have been quite successful. I have discovered that I love gyros- we've ate at several different gyro places now, and I have yet to get sick of them. We have also discovered an incredible park here. The weather has been beautiful lately, and it seems like everyone in town floods to the park to go biking, roller blading or running. We have also seen people practicing martial arts and photography- we've even witnessed a guy walking a rabbit on a leash. The park is definitely one of my new favorite places to be, and I can't wait for the flowers to start blooming! Another new favorite place is Cafe 87. Yesterday I had a white hot chocolate and carrot cake before class. Its simple things like relaxing at a cafe while watching people go by outside that makes me love this place. 

Some of my other successes so far are getting my laundry done and getting the hang of the trams. I feel like I've been adjusting very well here, and this experience has already exceeded my expectations. God has without a doubt taken me to places beyond my wildest dreams, and I feel immensely blessed by it all everyday. The next step is to plan spring break and some weekend trips. We will be going to Prague on Thursday, and we'll make it back just in time for my BIRTHDAY on Monday! I'll do my best to stay in touch and keep everyone posted :) 

A group of us girls in the "union" before going to a party for the international students. A different country hosts it every Wednesday, last week it was Finland's turn. 

A view of the beautiful park we found. 

My favorite view on the walk to Globus.