My First Week in the Czech Republic

What a crazy week this has been! Things have finally settled down, so I will sum up this past week as best as I can. After a day of traveling, we hit the ground running the moment we landed in Prague. Dragging 50 plus pounds of luggage through buses, trams and cobblestone streets was definitely a struggle (I regret packing so much now), but the feeling of being back in Europe made it worth every step. We finally got to our hostel called the Mosaic House, and it was a lot nicer than I expected it would be. Our first few days in Prague flew by. We spent a lot of time taking in the new culture while seeing the sights and getting familiar with our surroundings. I was impressed with the beauty and history of Prague, and it is without a doubt one of my new favorite cities!
On Sunday, we headed to the airport to catch the bus that took us to Olomouc. A group of us girls decided to take a shuttle straight from our hostel to the airport instead of dragging our luggage through town again, and I'm so glad we did. Our driver's name was Ihab; he was an awesome guy! We also rode with a couple who is originally from South Dakota. They are currently working in London, and they had a lot of great travel tips for us. It has been nice running into fellow Americans from time to time. We also met a law student from St. Louis who is traveling around Europe by himself. I have huge amounts of respect for anyone who can do that! It sure is a small world- no matter where you are!
 The bus ride to Olomouc took about 4 hours. It was a perfect opportunity to take a little nap and check out the countryside. We finally made it to the Palacky University dorms and got all checked into our rooms around 6 in the evening. My roommate Abby and I are on the 4th floor.We have a room to ourselves with quite a bit of storage. I was also excited to find out that we have a patio which will be perfect for relaxing and even drying our laundry on. Our flat includes 5 rooms all together, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a few closets. It is all pretty modern and much nicer than I expected. We met a couple of our flatmates right away, but there are some that I have yet to meet. From what I gather, there are two women from China, one from Poland, and one from Slovakia. We also have a man from Slovakia and one from France as well. Our flat is very quiet, we haven't spent a lot of time here in the past few days, but the only noise I hear from anyone is when they come to the kitchen area or use the bathroom. I'm pretty sure I overheard the French guy singing an American song today, but that was more entertaining than anything!
We ate at an amazing restaurant our first night here in Olomouc. The food was incredible, and it was my favorite meal yet! After we ate, we came back to our room to unpack and get some sleep. Yesterday morning was very eventful. We had orientation which included learning about the university, getting our tram passes, and touring the town hall. We had to go to a photo studio to get our pictures taken for our tram passes. We all laughed because it felt like the good old days when we had to get our first day of school pictures taken. We even got more than one picture so we jokingly thought about trading them or using them as decoration for our rooms. (My pictures will never see the light of day because I think they look horrible haha.) As I mentioned earlier, we were also able to take a tour of the town hall. This included going up the clock tower to get a view of the city. The journey up felt like it took forever. I was a little nervous, but it isn't everyday they let people go up in the tower, so I felt pretty special! The view from above was also worth the climb, and it was absolutely beautiful! After our tour we were set free for the day. A group of us girls decided to do some shopping at a few of the stores in town. Olomouc has a nice little shopping center with an H&M that all the girls are pretty excited about. After the mall, we decided to take on Globus (European Walmart) for the first time. Let's just say that was quite the experience after an exhausting day... but, I got most of the things I needed and I'm going to put off going back as long as I possibly can!
Today has been quite the experience as well. We started off in the same place this morning. After this morning's lecture, we were taken to see these caves in another town. I took a train for the first time which was not as exciting as I thought it would be. After we got off the train we began our journey through one town and into another. We literally walked through two towns. It was very cool to see towns smaller than Olomouc. The towns were perfectly simple, and the parks we passed through were very serene. There was a healing spa in the second town we made it to. The water is supposed to heal all sorts of things, so we tried some at a local fountain. It tasted like regular carbonated water, but I thought it was kind of neat. We finally made it to the caves which weren't too exciting for all the work we went through to get there, but the experience in general was worth it! After we toured the caves we were led to a steep, winding path that led to a huge abyss. The view was incredible, and the abyss was very interesting-it is so deep that explorers still haven't been able to find the bottom of it. After our journey back down the hill, we took a train home. It has definitely been a long day, and I'm bracing myself for some sore legs tomorrow!
I feel like I have just been along for the ride this past week while trying to take in as much as I can. People here are very easy going, so I'm just taking things one day at a time. There's been a lot of things that we've had to figure out on our own, and I feel like I've experienced so much already!

Things I Have Learned Since This Trip:
1. This seems crazy to say, but I have never realized that people here get married and have families.  When I thought of Europe, I was more concerned with the food and scenery, I didn't think about all the people who simply live here. I have been so surprised at the amount of children I've seen (it makes me miss all of the kids I babysit). We even got to see two newly married couples in Prague the other day. As funny as it may sound, I enjoy experiencing how people do life here.
2. H&M stores are everywhere in the Czech Republic, they are very popular.
3. Apparently no is actually a form of saying yes in the Czech language.
4. Strawberries here are amazing- so are the croissants.
5. Globus is a hobby lobby, pharmacy, best buy, and grocery store in one. It is very unorganized and overwhelming-especially when the labels are written in a different language. They also do not give you grocery bags, you have to bring your own.
6. I am out of shape.
7. It seems like everyone owns a dog here. People are always out walking around with their dogs, and the dogs are very well behaved for the most part.
8. We have been blessed with amazing weather. The temperature at this time last year was much cooler than it has been this season.
If you have made it to this point in my post, bless your soul! I tried to wrap it all up as best as possible, but so much has happened in such a short amount of time! I'll try my best to update this more frequently. To everyone back at home, I miss you and love you and the offer is always open if you want to come visit! ;)